Mutual Understandings
by sonikkugirl8
Summary: Sonic knew that Eggman was a messed up individual, but he didn't know he had it in him to torture a human kid THAT badly. The hedgehog HAD to do something, even if it meant making a fairly reluctant new friend in the process. Rated T for violence, mild cursing, and mild mental trauma. Mostly Danny-centric with Sonic elements
1. Prologue

_**Not exactly my first idea for my first crossover, but I've got the most figured out for this one, so what're you gonna do? ENJOY! :P Oh, and this takes place after Sonic Lost World and Phantom Planet never happened.**_

Prologue: A Dangerous Team-Up

Deep in the reaches of outer space, you wouldn't think anything malicious would be lurking, ready to strike when one would least expect it. Yes, there was a comet or asteroid here, a black hole there way too far away to be threatening, maybe a couple of ripples everywhere else, but nothing sinister, surely.

Over Mobius, however, everyone knew space was home to one of the most malevolent beings on the planet: The lair of the nefarious Dr. Eggman.

Eggman grew tired of being bombarded by hate mail, death threats, and idiots rushing towards his walls with protests. " _Ew, don't make so many robots, it's not good for the environment EHHHHH!"_ Enough was enough, Eggman thought as he finished packing his things. It was time for a new lair, somewhere away from all of the stupid animals. Somewhere very few could find him. It was time to retry the whole space lair shtick.

He hadn't built a lair in space since the whole Dark Gaia debacle. Yes, he built that one failed theme park, but lairs were much different. More comforting. More a place one could call home. Eggman had been so ecstatic from moving away from the planet that he decided to take a break and recuperate, not performing any evil deeds that weren't on his own robots. He didn't have to worry about anyone coming after him: He put in an anti-hedgehog chemical field around the base. Any hedgehog in the vicinity would be incapacitated by their own fear before simply being discarded onto the planet without a fight.

Why hedgehog? Well, because hedgehogs ALWAYS seemed to be sticking their noses where they don't belong with him.

It was two weeks into the vacation. He'd been a good little doctor, and made sure no one heard a peep from him, giving him time to think. As soon as he was ready, he would need a plan prepared. Couldn't let the dumb animals think he was off the grid forever now.

He was in his computer console researching for ideas when suddenly he received a transmission. The screen suddenly became full of static, startling the scientist.

"Cubot, did you spill hot tea all over my computer AGAIN?!" Eggman yelled to his incompetent lackey-bots, Orbot and Cubot.

"N-No boss. You banned me from drinking it around your stuff, remember?" Cubot said meekly.

"I think you're receiving a call." Orbot pressed the answer button and the doctor was soon face to face with a… rather odd fellow.

The man on the other end looked far too eccentric and wealthy to even dare associate with an evil psychopath such as Eggman, but the scientist could tell there was an air of sinisterness around him. The man appeared to be middle-aged, but was already full of an entire crop of silver hair, long enough to have to be tied back by a ponytail. He wore a long black suit with a tiny little red bowtie attached to the shirt. His eyes were cold, and their piercing gaze gave Eggman the shivers. To make it more obvious the man on the other end was bad news, in his lap was a pure white cat, who he stroked while staring right at Eggman. And, perhaps strangest of all, Eggman could see he had an odd obsession with at least two things: A woman, looking to be about the same age as him with striking purple eyes and gorgeous brown hair, and football. The two things were all around the room the stranger currently sat in.

 _Well this will be interesting…_ Eggman thought.

"What's the meaning of this? Who are you, and how did you get my number?!" Eggman yelled out in annoyance, though he couldn't help but feel the slightest bit intimidated.

"You must be Dr. Robotnik," the man began, unfazed by the other's screaming. "Allow me to introduce myself, Doctor. My name is Vlad Masters. As for your number, it was left on your website."

' _Vlad Masters'?! His NAME even sounds evil…_ Eggman inwardly groaned.

"Wait, website?!" Eggman turned to his two idiot robots and glared. "WHO TOLD YOU YOU COULD MAKE A WEBSITE AND PUT MY PERSONAL INFORMATION ON IT?!"

"We got bored…" Cubot admitted.

"GET OUT BEFORE I TURN YOU INTO SCRAP METAL!" The two robots fled and the sound of Vlad's irritated groan returned Eggman's attention to him.

"I assume they're always like that?" Vlad asked, reconsidering in the back of his mind this plan if the doctor's creations were all as defective as those two.

"Unfortunately," Eggman said, focusing back on the matter at hand. "Now what do you want?!"

"I have a proposition for you." Vlad said as he put his cat down and got to business. "Maddie, dear, could you bring up the plan files?"

"Anything for you, honey!" a shrill, electronic sounding voice called from the background, and soon the screen came to life with files and images. Eggman was then given time to briefly skim through the files. They were full of heavy descriptions of… well, 'ghosts'. Eggman had seen ghosts and spirits in his own world before, so he took to the sights and identified them as such faster than Vlad thought he would, to his pleasant surprise.

"I see you're already well acquainted with ghosts." Vlad said, a bit shocked.

"I've built a base in a haunted castle before. This is really nothing new… except for one thing: what on Earth is a… halfa, is it?" Eggman was confused, and the scientist in him wanted to rectify this immediately.

"Ah, yes, halfas." Vlad said with a sly smile, knowing all along the doctor would be interested in the term. "Halfas are half human, half ghost. A mix of the two, as it were. If you're interested, part of the plan involves your 'investigation' of one such being." Vlad relished in the very excited look Eggman was giving him. He was playing right into his hands.

"R-Really?" Eggman squeaked out like a little fanboy. He barely knew this man, and he was just… GIVING him what was implied to be an incredibly rare subject? Oh, the _fun_ he would have, learning the ins and outs of it.

And him being as depraved as he was, he didn't exactly care if it was technically human. He did a little, but not enough to really stop himself from going too into it.

"You're going to let me study a halfa? Just like that?!" Eggman said incredulously. Suspicion began to creep into his mind however. Evil's intuition told him there HAD to be a catch. "What's in it for you, exactly?"

"This particular halfa happens to be my 'arch enemy', as he insists. I wouldn't put it like that, but him not being constantly in my face would be a nice change of pace. I'm sure you can relate."

Eggman cringed at the thought. He would LOVE it if HIS arch enemy left him alone for an extended period of time.

"So, my plan is this. You can have the halfa, but you must return him in a few months. You can do whatever you want to him without killing him, and he needs to be alive by the time I get him back. No permanent physical disfigurement either. Mental scarring is fine, if you absolutely must. You do all of this and as a bonus, I'll even take of your little hedgehog problem personally."

That was when Eggman's jaw REALLY hit the floor. A chance to study an otherworldly being for his own nefarious purposes AND potentially be rid of that meddlesome Sonic the Hedgehog?! It was an offer he couldn't refuse now. Still, he had to ask, if only for the sake of it own neck..

"And if I end up killing or losing him?"

Vlad's tone suddenly shifted from businesslike, to dangerous almost scarily quickly, and for a moment, Eggman could have sworn Vlad's eyes flashed blood red for a moment. "Then I'll take care of YOU instead, doctor."

Eggman audibly gulped.

"Now, do we have a deal, Dr. Robotnik?" Vlad said, tone returned to what it was before.

"...Deal."

"Excellent. I shall send the subject to you right away. He'll be weak and unable to use his powers for three hours, so you have until then to contain him. I'm sure it'll be no problem."

"Wait, I'm up in a space station in another dimension. How are y-"

Suddenly, a bright green, swirling portal spawned in Eggman's computer room and spat out a ragged looking teenage boy. The boy yelped on impact and curled in on to himself in agony, biting back tears. When he recovered, he looked right at Eggman and glared.

"Hmph." The boy said, weak, but defiant, "I take it you're one of Vlad's froot loopy friends?


	2. The Creeps

_**As a warning for those who are a bit squeamish, this scene does contain a little bit of a graphic description of a torture victim.**_

The Creeps

 _ **Four Months Later**_

Within the dark halls of Eggman's vast space lair wandered a hopelessly lost and somewhat confused and scared blue hedgehog. All of his instincts were screaming for him to just go back to the rocket and get as far away from the structure as possible as quick as he could. It was only sheer willpower that kept him going, which worried him. He'd NEVER been scared of Eggman's creepy and horribly lit bases before so why start now.

Besides, he had been sent here on a mission.

The hedgehog's ears twitched as they caught onto a sudden clang of metal. The clang of Eggman's nearby robot guards. He forced himself to bite back the yelp his instincts annoyingly wanted him to make and came out of his shadowed hiding place dashing straight into their path. They barely had time to acknowledge his presence before he crashed into them head first at frightening speed, destroying them on contact. With threats to his stealth taken care of, he continued down the halls and resumed his search.

He felt a vibration around his wrist, his communicator, and found a safe spot to answer it.

" _Yellow Watchdog to Blue Leader, you copy?"_

"Yeah, Tails, I hear ya loud and clear." He rolled his eyes at his friend's little codenames. He knew he would hear it from him, but it was fun to mess with his little buddy. Takes his mind off of being utterly terrified.

" _Sonic, how many times do I have to tell you, it's_ Yellow Watchdog! _It took me a long time to think that up."_

"Okay, jeez, sorry. I hear you loud and clear, _Yellow Watchdog…_ "

" _Thank you."_

Sonic bit back a chuckle as he got back to the matter at hand. "You got the info I need or what?"

" _Yup. Just updated your mini-map. According to the map I currently have on screen, you're not too far from the holding chambers."_

"Thanks, little buddy. I'll call you when I get there. Blue Leader out." The image of Tails was replaced with the mini-map and Sonic continued to follow the blip to its destination.

Someone was locked in those holding chambers. They didn't know how long, and Sonic kicked himself for not figuring it out sooner, but that much they knew. There was no way the Blue Blur was going to let some poor innocent person be locked in a place like _this._ Surely, there had to be a rule against it.

Maybe whoever it was was the reason Eggman had been on the downlow as of late.

Four months and not one word of an evil plot or petty little misdemeanor or even a sighting of Egg-Breath at all. It was a relief to Sonic and his friends at first, but as the disappearance went on, it began to seriously unnerve the animals. Something about the 'calm before the storm', Sonic remembered Shadow mumble.

As Sonic got closer to the chamber, he eventually came across the entrance to Eggman's computer room. Thanks to his keen hedgehog hearing, he could tell Eggman was having a conversation on the other side of the door. Confident the coast was clear and that he was safe, Sonic put his ear to the door and listened closely.

"...oing great, Mr. Mas… lly can't th… r letti… y him."

"Pleasu… ne… And I tru… ...nd of the bargain."

"...s, sir of course."

Now there was a voice Sonic had never heard before. Who the heck was Eggman talking to? As Sonic picked up on more clacking from the guard robots nearby, he knew that he would have to wait to get answers. So, instead of barging in and confronting Eggman like a moron, he ignored it for now and left.

 _Whoever that guy was,"_ Sonic pondered, " _he sounded like a sleazeball._

Within minutes, Sonic found the the chamber, and was immediately startled when he heard the faintest of whimpers. A sickeningly young sounding whimper.

Whoever Eggman had was probably only a kid, Sonic realized from the whimper alone.

Surprise and fear was immediately replaced with his blood boiling and disgust rising. How could Eggman do this to a _kid_ of all people?! Without hesitation, Sonic dashed in, not bothering to keep quiet any longer, and he followed the whimpers to their source. He was stopped in his tracks by what he found.

Inside of the chamber was a very frail and weak looking human boy. He couldn't have been older than 16; Sonic knew enough about human anatomy to tell the kid was about his age or less. The boy's clothes barely hung off him, and what was left barely looked like they fit, he was so small. He was skin and bones, complexion pale, constantly trembling. He was clutching his knees like a lifeline, head buried in between and what was showing covered in a mop of messy, sheenless black hair.

Oh, and all of the gashes and _scars._ If Sonic had eaten recently, he would have puked at the sight of them. All of them looked very infected, noticeable from all the pus, blood and… was that _toxic waste_ or something he was seeing? Only toxic waste should have such a horrid green glow…

To really hit home how much damage Eggman had done to him, the boy's head suddenly shot up when Sonic made a sudden move. The boy's pupils were pin pricks within faded and bloodshot blue, and the look of fear he gave the hedgehog nearly broke Sonic's heart.

"Please, d-don't hurt me…" The boy croaked, clutching his head with both hands. Sonic knew that position. He'd dealt with a lot of abused kids in his spare time working with the police for awhile because they needed his kinder touch.

 _It was something he picked up from Eggman,_ Sonic thought darkly, scowling slightly at the thought. _He thinks I'm gonna hit him or somthin'._

"I'm not gonna hurt you." Sonic crouched down and got to eye level, seeing as though the boy lie on his side. "I'm gonna try and get you outta here."

"D-Don't try and trick me…" the boy said softly, barely able to contain his tears. "I-I've seen you around here before. He s-sometimes uses you t-to... " he trailed off and softly sobbed. Sonic thought of only one person he could have confused him with.

"No, no, that couldn't have been me. The guy who did this to you, he has a robot that looks like me. Trust me, I wouldn't hurt a fly." Sonic said with a reassuring smile, trying to lift the boy's spirits. His smile faltered when he moved a little too much and made the boy flinch.

"It's alright. You don't have to completely trust me right now. Just know that I'm telling the truth." Sonic finished, and he called Tails right away.

"Yellow Watchdog, come in. I found who we're looking for. I need you to hack into his cell right now and have the rocket ready."

" _You got it, Blue Leader."_

Within minutes the cell was unlocked, and the door opened. The boy realized there was nothing between him and the giant, scary looking hedgehog anymore, and so he balled up more to protect himself.

"You're not gonna let me carry you outta here, are ya?" Sonic said, already knowing the answer before the immediate head shake came. The hedgehog groaned, not liking what he had to do next, and pressed down a pressure point in the child's shoulder until he passed out.

"Hopefully he stays out until we get back to the planet, or else this is gonna suck," Sonic moaned to himself. Careful not to agitate his injuries, the Blue Blur quickly scooped his charge up and ran as fast as he could the the waiting rocket, glad to leave this place behind.

* * *

"Heh, heh, heh, heh… I can already TASTE the lack of hedgehog in the air…"

Eggman opened the door to the holding chamber and strolled easily to his charge's cage, a cruel smirk on his face.

"Oh, _Danny_ … it's time for you to go ho-" Eggman froze when he saw the boy was nowhere to be seen, the cage unceremoniously unlocked. He looked around and saw no sign of his charge.

The only thing left behind was a few strands of blue hedgehog fur.

"B-But… how di-" Eggman growled, knowing his life just got a whole lot more difficult, and could do nothing else at the moment but scream his frustrations out into the ceiling, a scream so loud it could be heard through even the impossibly quiet reaches of space.

"SOOOOOOOOOONNNNNIIIIIIIIIIIC!"


	3. Lonely

Chapter 2- Lonely

Sonic tapped his fingers anxiously on the rocket's steering wheel. He had taken over for Tails awhile ago so he could take care of their new 'guest' along with Amy. He wouldn't want it any other way, but still… If only this thing had a stupid autopilot, then he could be in there.

" _Sonic, turn the ship on autopilot and come help me out!"_ Tails suddenly said over the intercom.

"Oh, you've gotta be joking with me…" Sonic obeyed and jogged over to the infirmary, irritation plain on his face.

"Why didn't you guys tell me we had an autopilot sooner? I coulda been down here already." Sonic said with an angry pout, crossing his arms as he hung by the doorway of the room.

"If we're being honest, it was to keep you outta here while we were working. We needed the space." Tails said apologetically. This caused Sonic's features to mildly soften, and he got a look at the now nearly mummified teenager on the cot before him, covered from head to toe in sterile gauze and bandages.

"He was really _that_ bad off?" Sonic said quietly as he got up close. Amy nodded, and gently stroked the boy's hair as he slept. He was now properly anesthetized, the blue hedgehog noticed.

"I've never seen someone, Mobian _or_ human, have that many scars. A lot of them couldn't have come from Eggman; they looked too old for the guy to make them." Amy said, tears threatening to fall.

"You're saying he's been having those nasty scars even _before_ all this?" Sonic's eyes widened, and he shuttered. Just what had he been through for all of those to be on him? He didn't want to think about that anymore, and instead decided to change the subject. "S-So, moving on… What about all the glowing green stuff that was oozing out of the wounds? It wasn't toxic waste, was it, cause if it was, I'll bash Eggman's head in faster than I already planned to." Sonic nearly growled the question out, barely able to contain his anger. What Tails said shocked him even more, however.

"No, it's not toxic waste. It's mildly radioactive and it wouldn't really be wise to be in more contact than we need to with it, but it's not that. Plus, I tried siphoning some of it out and his vital signs plummeted. I think the green substance is like an extension of his blood; he needs it to survive.

"And the rest of his vital signs are freaking me out too. According to his temperature, he's hypothermic, and yet, he's still alive. His heart and respiratory rates are incredibly slow, slower than a normal human should have in sleep. And a couple times, he _disappeared out of thin air_ without warning and just pops right back in bed where we left him…"

"'Disappear out of thin air'?" Sonic balked, eyes wider than thought possible. "What, can he turn invisible or somethin'?"

Suddenly, the boy flickered out of visibility right before Sonic's eyes for a few moments before reappearing as if nothing happened. He'd never really thought humans could have superpowers before. He'd read comic books and heard rumors and stories from the residents of Station Square, but they were only that: Rumors and stories. Plus he didn't think Eggman would just give him powers for no reason.

"That's actually really cool…" Sonic breathed to himself. He jumped when he heard the boy groan and stir. "Guys, game faces, he's waking up." The two makeshift doctors stepped aside so Sonic could do his thing. He was probably the best with kids out of all of them, despite Tails and Amy being the youngest of their group.

Sonic waited for the inevitable fright that the boy would exert, and immediately got to work calming him. "Hey, hey, it's alright. You're safe, okay?"

"Wh-Where am I?" the kid said, clutching the blankets and pulling them closer as protection.

Sonic gave him a sad smile before continuing in a comforting tone. "You're gonna be alright. You're on a rocket headed back to the planet. As soon as we get you all patched up and ready to go, we're gonna take you home."

"H-Home?" The boy froze when Sonic mentioned 'home'. He considered it a tiny bit before realizing he had no idea where his home even was. It was wiped clean from his mind.

"Yeah. Could you tell us where it is so Tails can call your parents and tell them we've got you? They're probably worried sick."

Reluctantly, the boy gave a head shake no. "I-I don't… remember." Sonic was taken aback by this.

"You don't remember?" Sonic shot a concerned glance at Tails before continuing. He didn't much like where this was going either. "Then… how about friends? Do you have any friends we could call instead?" Another reluctant headshake came after a long pause. Sonic sighed and decided not to beat around the bush with this. "Is there anything you _do_ remember?"

The boy swallowed and looked into all of the faces of his new captors. Was he really willing to let them know what was going on with him? They looked concerned, but for all he knew, it was just a facade to lead him to a false sense of security. He couldn't trust them without being sure of their motives. The first thing he remembered seeing a few months ago was the face of that horrid man, and he was probably even nicer to him than these animals at first. Plus their leader looked too much like that robot. He wouldn't make the same mistake twice. "W-Why should I tell you something you could use against me…? I'm not stupid."

"Look. We're just trying to help you. We know you have no reason to trust us right away after what you probably went through, but we need to know this stuff if we wanna move on with getting you better." Sonic said.

The boy simply shook his head and refused to say anymore after that. Obviously he was still too shaken up to talk to them, the trio noticed, and they simply left him alone to rest and have some space.

This wouldn't exactly stop Sonic from trying to do research himself, however.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Sonic sighed again. "Poor kid... Hey you think any of those files we dug up from Eggman's got something about him? Just so we can see where he lives?"

"It wouldn't be right to dig into his private life like that, Sonic," Amy pointed out.

"Yeah, I know, but his family's probably thinking he's DEAD by now. What's more important, getting him back to his own life as soon as possible, or letting his family wallow in grief? As soon as we get the address, we'll stop looking."

It took some convincing, but Tails finally started pulling up the few files they'd retrieved. Luckily for them, one of them was about the kid they picked up, apparently named Danny Fenton, but most of the info was under a tough to crack password.

"Why do you think Eggman's got most of this stuff so locked up?"

"If I were him, I'd probably lock it up too. You never know when hackers try to get atcha." Tails said absentmindedly. "Anyways, it doesn't look like we're getting Danny home anytime soon."

"Why not?"

"Y'know how sometimes we go and visit Mario? And how he's from another dimension?"

"Yeah?"

"Well it says here that Danny's from a really far away dimension. Too far for my teleporter certainly. I don't know how Eggman nabbed him, but it looked like it was a one way trip."

"Damn…" Sonic said under his breath. How the heck were they supposed to get him back home now? "Can you at least get any info on his family? We gotta tell them _something._ "

"All I'm gathering is that his parents are some kinda hunters. For what, I'm not sure. Other than his age, height, weight, and medical records, that's pretty much it."

Sonic excused himself after getting the bare basics from the heavily encrypted files. He had to think about things for a bit. They were dealing with a frightened, severely injured, amnesic, and evidently superpowered kid who they couldn't get home because no teleporters are strong enough to do so. They knew very little about him except his name and very basic facts. They were useful facts, but basic all the same. For all they knew, the kid had a criminal record or something. And yet it was pretty obvious what Sonic was gonna do.

He was going to invite a total stranger to sleep on his couch for an indefinite amount of time.

Decision set in stone, not even bothering to tell the others anything for now (contrary to what everyone thought, Sonic DID have a house of his own to put him in anyways.) he went to the infirmary to go talk to Danny.

* * *

If you were in Danny's position, could you really blame him for not trusting anyone but himself and being so scared?

Let's see, his only memories were his name and about four months worth of dissections, torture, and experimentation, all delivered by a complete mental case. He was just nabbed by a guy who looked pretty damn spot on like the robot who most reveled in said dissections, torture, and experimentation, a robot who used to sit by his cell for hours and just point and laugh at him, mocking him for being so weak and in pain. Now all the sudden, the same creep is all sappy and trying to _care_ about him for once? Danny just couldn't believe the audacity of the thing at that point.

He was in the middle of outer space (which in the far back reaches of his mind, Danny thought it was the coolest thing in the history of ever). He noticed that all of his gashes were just _gone._ What did those freaks put in him that healed him so quickly?!

Danny's body shot up in surprise when he heard Sonic coming back.

 _Remember, it's just a robot. It's just back to try and trick you again._

"What do you want…?" Danny said warily. Fear and a bit of hatred bled into his tone. With all the injuries disappearing, it wasn't exactly hard to find the energy to do so.

"Hey, uh, Danny?" Sonic started awkwardly, "Can I talk to y- whoa…" Sonic was startled when he saw Danny's condition: he almost looked as healthy as he did in his profile picture, minus the more pronounced skinniness. "How did you heal so fast?!"

"I should be the one asking that. I know you guys put something inside of me…" Danny shot daggers at the hedgehog. If looks could kill, Sonic probably would have melted instantly.

"The only thing we put inside of you was anesthetic to make you sleep. Still can't believe that wore off so fast…"

"Yeah right… I know you put something in me, robot. No one should be able to heal that fast…"

Sonic bit back the urge to facepalm. The kid still thought he was Metal Sonic, didn't he?

"I already told you, I'm not Metal Sonic. I'm _Sonic_ Sonic. As in the actual one."

"'Metal Sonic… yeah, real creative name there," Danny deadpanned. Now it was more than obvious the robot was lying through his teeth. Who's stupid enough to name a fake robot Metal Sonic if they're trying to trick you?

"Look, you want proof?" Sonic came up to Danny's bedside and pulled out two pictures. One was of Sonic himself, and one was of Metal Sonic, his demented, robotic doppelganger. He thought he knocked the crazy out of him the LAST time they met up. Apparently not.

The two them may have look similar, but not even the similarities can survive when the two of them are put side by side. No one was that easily fooled.

Danny's eyes shined in a sort of realization when he looked at the pictures up close. Metal Sonic's eyes were soulless black and red and electronic. Blank. Mechanical. Sonic's eyes were clear and a brilliant emerald. Full of life. Real. Metal Sonic's body was cold and unwelcoming, Sonic's fur, now that he was close to Danny, felt warm and comforting. Plus Metal Sonic had no mouth or tail, which Danny found really odd.

 _Great…_ Danny said guiltily, _Now I feel bad._ He still didn't completely trust the hedgehog at this point, but if he was trying to help, he didn't want him mad.

"Uh… Sonic was it?" Danny asked in the meek voice he had adopted, causing Sonic to turn in attention. "I'm real sorry I thought you were that… that monster. You just both looked so similar and I was so scared-"

"Don't worry about it Danny. I'd probably make the same mistake if I was in your position."

Danny sighed in mild relief that he wasn't angry with him. Whenever the rare time came that he talked back to Eggman, it wasn't pretty right after. "So, you were coming to talk to me about something?"

"Hmm?" Sonic mumbled under his breath, seemingly snapped out of his own thoughts. That, or he was so tired from all this, he could barely stay awake anymore. Danny couldn't help but make an unconscious smirk at the hedgehog's behavior. "Oh, yeah, well… we, uh… We found out you're from another faraway dimension, so… home's kinda outta the question at the moment."

"Oh…" Was all Danny said, sadness melting into him. He was really stuck here?

"But don't worry about it!" Sonic noticed how quickly Danny's mood further fell and tried to explain his plan to pick it back up. "My buddy Tails is an inventor. He already has a dimension hopping teleporter, and with a few tweaks, he can increase its range in no time! And since you have nowhere else to go, I figured you could, y'know, stay with me?" He explained, phrased more like a question than anything.

"You want me to live with you?" Danny gaped at the hedgehog. Surely he was joking. He barely knew him!

Sonic nodded vigorously. "Of course!

Before being overcome by happiness, Danny sobered himself, and let his distrust shine through. "Okay, what's the catch? You can't just be doing this to help me."

"You'd be surprised." Sonic said with a warm smile, and he got up from the seat he had taken. "I'll letcha think about it. 'Til then I'm gonna hit the sack for awhile. We'll be landing in a few hours, so I think you've got time to weigh your options. Night." With that Sonic left the room and closed the door behind him, leaving Danny to stew in his own thoughts for about four hours.


	4. Change of Plans

Chapter 3- Change of Plans

 _ **The Next Day**_

Robots usually could not sense or display emotion. They could not, under normal circumstances, have an AI advanced enough to do so.

So you know it must be pretty bad when the entire Eggman Army was terrified enough to avoid the pissed-off-beyond-comprehension Eggman like the plague unless forced to do so. Orbot and Cubot weren't so lucky.

"I thought I had EVERYTHING perfectly in place…" Eggman began to rant as he paced back and forth in his computer room, waiting for his 'friend' Vlad to come over and probably kill him instantly for losing Danny so easily.

"I put the boy in a ghost-proof container under heavy lock and key, I use my Egg Wiper to make sure he can't escape and fight me back, I have the entire base covered in the strongest anti-hedgehog field I can make, I have patrols within _every single inch_ of the structure, I have my signature untraceable from any kind of tracking device, I even have a damned cloaking mechanism in place… And that hedgehog _still_ manages to find his way here and ruin everything!"

"Boss, maybe it's not so b-"

"'Not so bad?!' That madman, Vlad, is probably on his way here to the dimension right now to kill me! He doesn't say it, but that boy's probably as much an obsession for him as that woman he likes to drone on about. Margaret or Mattie or something, I don't know! The point is my minutes are surely numbered and it's all Sonic's fault!"

"Oh, when you put it that way, it makes me sound downright diabolical."

Eggman froze in terror and turned around to find Vlad staring at him through his doorway, a devilish, smug sneer plastered on his face. No doubt he heard every word Eggman said.

"I-I didn't hear you come in…"

"I know. You were so caught up in your cute little rant that you didn't notice much of anything. Not even the sound of one of your precious robots being destroyed seemed to get your attention." With that, Vlad casually stepped aside and revealed Mecha Sonic, smoking and covered in what seemed to be a corrosive pink energy. There was no way to save the novelty robot in that state.

"M-Mecha Sonic…"

"And trust me doctor. I plan to do _much worse_ to the real thing when I get my hands on him."

Eggman's face brightened up at this. Vlad wasn't here to kill him but rather destroy Sonic for his meddling! He had a chance for survival after all!

"Y-You're not going to kill me…?"

"Seeing as how this technically isn't your fault, I'll be merciful just this once. If only to exterminate the actual pest responsible for you losing Daniel. But because many of your robots are sadly incompetent, I'll give you a partner to assist you." He snapped his fingers, and Eggman made a little 'Eep' sound and recoiled at the sight of his new partner. "Doctor, this is my associate, Skulker. Skulker, Dr. Robotnik."

"This rotund human is going to help me catch the whelp? He looks too pathetic for my tastes." The ghost, Skulker, said with an eyebrow raised.

Skulker was taller than the 6-something foot tall doctor, covered from chest down in a thick suit of armor adorned with more weaponry than thought possible. The impressive suit made Eggman gawk at it, wondering if he could replicate it; his enemies would run in fear for sure if they saw him in _that…_

"Don't be too frightened with this one, doctor. He looks like THIS whenever he loses his suit after all." Vlad said with an amused smirk, and before Skulker could snatch it away, Eggman was given a picture of the hunter's true form: a tiny green blob with stubby little feet and arms.

Eggman couldn't help but laugh incredibly hard at that.

Skulker growled at his employer, threatening to blast him before thinking twice. He _was_ about to be given two prizes to hunt for the price of one. Whispering to Vlad so Eggman wouldn't hear, "I thought I said to never reveal my true form, Plasmius…"

"Oh, I know. I just think it'd be beneficial for the doctor to know how useless you are without that suit to make sure he knows to maintain it."

Eggman chuckled more before giving the picture back. Skulker was fast enough this time and blasted it to ash before it could be returned.

"I trust you two will be quick with bringing Daniel and that hedgehog here to me so I can deal with them."

"As long as I get to keep the blue rodent's pelt when you're done with him, I'll make good on that. It might even make a good sweater for my mate..." Skulker said with a smile of anticipation. He'd never had a reason to hunt animals in his afterlife, but this particular one, however, could be an exception. Vlad had shown him pictures of the planet. Yes, it made the hedgehog slightly less rare that there were similar kinds of animals on the planet, but none of them had such a vivid and slick blue coat. His pelt would be a perfect addition to his collection, even more perfect for the love of his afterlife. His sweet, sweet Ember...

Eggman shuddered at the thought of someone wanting to skin Sonic for his fur, but if the hedgehog was out of his hair, he didn't care in the end. He was glad to have such an enthusiastic partner for a change. Despite him being a very disturbed ghost, this'll be a good change of pace.

"I'll grab a rocket and set a course for Mobius immediately. Come on, Skulker, we're burning daylight." Eggman went by the doorway to head to the craft station.

"Report back to me when you have captured them." Vlad said. When Eggman gave him an absentminded thumbs-up, he nodded in affirmation and returned to Amity Park with a handheld portal device.

"So, Dr. Robotnik…" Skulker said as he walked down the halls with his new partner, "tell me more about my new prey."

* * *

It was the middle of the day when Sonic finally returned to his home (the unnecessarily large almost-mansion he still hadn't finished chewing Tails out for making him when he specifically asked for a small house), exhausted and ready to pass out on the doorstep then and there. However, he couldn't sleep just yet.

Who else would give his new guest a tour of the abode?

"Just a warning, I'm sorry in advance for the mess, D. I usually don't care if I leave stuff all over the place." Sonic said to Danny, standing behind him, who simply raised an eyebrow. After where he came from, Sonic's place was probably like a five-star hotel in comparison.

Danny shrugged. "Can't be that bad."

"Trust me, it's bad," Sonic laughed before opening the door and revealing his untidy and clutter-filled house. Junk was in every corner of the room, garbage in places where the junk wasn't. And the smell made an elephant pin at a zoo smell like soap. Sonic paled at the mess while Danny got queasy and nearly fainted.

Okay, so maybe it was more like a two-star hotel.

"Alright, it's worse than I thought…" Sonic helped Danny keep from passing out and got him under a tree to rest. "You wait right here, and I'll clean the place up real fast." Sonic winked before turning back to his house.

"H-How the heck are you gonna do t-" Before Danny could blink, Sonic dashed into the abode at high speed and cleaned the place up fully within 30 seconds. Would have taken less if he didn't have to wash out a couple moldy spots. This left Danny speechless.

"Well, ya didn't think they call me 'Sonic' for nothin', did ya?" Sonic got the awestruck human teen up and helped him inside. "Yeah, so goin' fast is kinda my thing…"

"T-Tha… That was so COOL!" The previously melancholy and depressive state Danny found himself in lifted temporarily as he drooled over how incredible Sonic's speed was for a good ten minutes. (If he had his memories, he would surely punch himself over how dorky he sounded.)

When his new roommate was done gawking, Sonic started to show him around. "Eventually this empty room'll be yours. I just gotta find some time to get some furniture for it. For now, you've got the couch. The room next to this one is mine, bathroom's further down and next to the living room is the kitchen. If you get bored, I've got a PS4, a Dreamcast, a gaming PC, a Genesis, a Gamecube, a Wii, and a buttload of games in my studio. … … Oh yeah, I've also got a studio and a ton of movies and junk and a popcorn bar and…"

Danny just stood dumbfounded as Sonic droned on and on about the stuff he had. The kid had an entire underground MOVIE THEATER!

Danny chuckled shyly after Sonic went on for long enough. "I just didn't take you for the lavish type…. You seemed like more of a small apartment guy."

Sonic rubbed the back of his neck, blushed, and looked at the floor. "Blame Tails on that one. Built this place within two days when I was on a vacation with my girlfriend."

"Would your girlfriend happen to be that pink hedgehog that was with us?" Danny smirked mischievously, knowing when Sonic's blush deepened that he hit it on the nose.

"Y… Yeah. We just started dating about a month ago. Still kinda awkward y'know…?" Sonic shook his head. He barely knew the guy, he couldn't just dump his baggage on him. "But, anyways, I left a blanket and pillow on the couch for ya. You need anything, don't hesitate to wake me up. I'm gonna take a nap and then order some takeout later. Peace out." Sonic shuffled sleepily into his room and settled into bed to nap.

Danny smiled at his new caretaker's flustered behavior before remembering he shouldn't be so trusting. He had no idea what this guy's true motives were still, so he couldn't completely let his guard down.

But that was kind of hard when the guy he was trying not to trust was such a dorky goof.

The teen sighed and headed into the kitchen to grab a bite. He was absolutely _starving._ He had no idea when his last proper meal was, and he wasn't about to sit there and miss another one. He hoped Sonic had something he didn't have to cook: He didn't know if he knew how to, but no memories wouldn't help him either way.

Without thinking too much about, thoughts slightly muddled from fatigue, Danny, quite literally, stuck his hand through a cabinet. It was only when he noticed what he was doing that he got startled and his hand became stuck in the cabinet door.

"DAH! M-My arm!" Danny tried to pull it out, but it was no use; the arm wouldn't budge. Danny pulled harder and harder, panic building, only stopping when his arm started to hurt from the thrashing.

After about a half hour, he felt on the verge of crying, but he didn't want to call Sonic. No need to alert the still potential enemy of his predicament and make himself seem even more pathetic. One question constantly rang through Danny's mind: How the heck did he even do that in the first place?! He just… pushed his arm right through without thinking about it!

… … .Maybe if he focused, he could do it again.

"Okay, um…" Danny muttered to himself, "arm, come out."

Nothing happened.

"Uh… abracadabra!"

Nothing again.

"Alakazam?"

Nothing still.

Danny sighed, and just when he calmed down and was about to sign away his dignity once again, his arm suddenly turned cold and see-through. The cabinet also stopped hurting.

Believing this was what he wanted, he yanked his arm out as fast as he could, fearing it to turn solid again without warning. As soon as it was out, it turned tangible once again.

After poking his arm to make sure it was still there, Danny opened the cabinet the old-fashion way as intended and grabbed a bag of chips. He then finally plopped onto his new 'bed' and devoured them while trying to think everything over.

He had just stuck his hand through a piece of wood like he was some kind of ghost or something.


	5. Shreds of Trust

Chapter 4- Shreds of Trust

It was around 11 pm when Sonic woke up in a start, suddenly hearing a sharp noise breaking him away from his rest. He sat up disoriented for a few moments and rubbed the remaining sleep from his eyes before groggily getting up to check it out. He shuffled slowly down the halls, uncharacteristic of him unless you knew how drained he could get at night, ears periodically flicking to pick up the source of the disturbance.

When no other sound came after about five minutes, he yawned and headed back to his room, already falling back to sleep when his head hit the pillow. The sound suddenly came again just then, startling the hedgehog and leaving him more awake.

"What the hell…?" Sonic slurred, scratching his head. He flinched when it happened again and when it registered more and more like a frightened yelp to his muddled brain, he had a feeling what was making the noise. "Oh, man…" Sonic said, sympathy creeping into his tone. He jogged as fast as he could to the living room, and saw Danny tangled up in his blankets on the floor with panic clear on his face as expected.

The boy barely made sense in his state, mutters and whimpers the only semi-coherent things Sonic could make out. What freaked him out is that some of this stuff couldn't have been about the torture. Had Danny been remembering something… something bad?

"Must be some nightmare any way you put it…" Sonic said quietly to himself. It wasn't long before he couldn't just stand there and let Danny suffer, and so he crouched down onto the floor and started to shake him. Probably wasn't the best solution, but Sonic didn't have time to waste on something better.

"Danny. Yo, Danny, wake up!"

Danny's eyes shot open quickly at that, and before Sonic could process anything more he without warning was slammed into the wall, having no clue what hit him. Sonic saw stars, confusingly felt tingles on his belly, and saw what he could have sworn was green smoke, but it didn't matter at the moment. The hedgehog shook off the daze and approached a confused and half-asleep looking Danny with caution.

"You okay, D…?" Sonic tried to get closer than just a few feet, but Danny shot him a wild glare and shot him with the crazy looking green blast, pinning the hedgehog to the wall like wall-art again.

"You can't touch me with that! H-Hurts to much!" Danny clutched his head in his hands and rocked against the couch in a ball. It was more than just a nightmare, Sonic realized. It looked like the nightmare's _much worse_ , more screwed-up cousin, the night terror, had gotten a grip over his charge.

Sonic also put two-and-two together real quick and saw that Danny had _shot him…_ With an _energy blast…_ And a pretty damn strong one too.

"Tha…That might be a problem," Sonic said discouraged, ears dropping against his head instinctively. He was in a tough position: either let Danny suffer and ride this out himself until he passed back out, his cries and wails permeating the entire building and maybe even a few blocks beyond, or be a good person and at least try and comfort him at the risk of those energy shots either ripping holes through the mansion walls like tissue or melting Sonic's face off.

If you knew Sonic, you already knew the answer to that predicament, and boy was it gonna be a long night.

* * *

It was 7:30 in the morning when Danny woke up, but not in the place he remembered falling asleep.

"Wh-Wha…?" Danny shot up and found himself to be in a bedroom. He was on a twin sized bed with soft, velvety blue sheets with sky blue dots on them. At the four corners lie a white pole with a Ring on top of each. The pillows were as soft as clouds and the mattress itself seemed to be memory foam. Next to the bed on the lamp table was some fresh apple slices and a glass of water to go with it. It looked to be set out maybe within ten minutes ago. Danny could see posters of a lot of things on the walls, from music acts like 'Cash Cash' and 'Crush 40' to hand painted landscapes of rolling green hills and white sandy beaches and plenty of plants to a poster with these seven jewels on them. Danny thought the jewels in particular were really pretty. The walls were painted a nice baby blue color with grass and flowers painted on the bottom.

Then, right across from the bed sat Sonic, asleep on a computer chair. He had a small blanket draped over him and his head drooped against his chest, drool steadily flowing out much to Danny's light disgust. His soft snores permeated what was otherwise an extremely quiet room. On his chest, Danny quietly gasped when he saw that the hedgehog had burn marks adorn it. In fact, the whole hedgehog's body seemed to be covered in some type of injury.

Had something happened last night? Had Sonic brought Danny in here to protect him from something, getting himself hurt in the process? Whatever happened, he was even kind enough to give Danny his bed, instead of putting him in the chair and hogging the bed for himself. If so, then Danny didn't know what to think. Why was this hedgehog trying so hard to gain his trust?! It had to be a trick, Danny still knew that, but then why would he risk getting himself hurt?

Danny decided to get to the bottom of this.

Carefully, the boy got out of bed and crept slowly to Sonic. Stopping next to the chair, he decided to see if the injuries weren't just some kind of painted ash or something. Without thinking, Danny only lightly touched one of the bruises on Sonic's arm, causing Sonic's once blissful face to contort in pain as he winced and whined in his sleep. Other than that he didn't wake; he was completely wiped out.

Danny sighed. These injuries were definitely real. Slowly, he lifted Sonic up to not agitate anything and tucked him into his bed to let him rest for a few hours. He took the apple slices and headed to the living room to think.

The more behavior he saw of Sonic, the more Danny realized he most likely meant him no harm. He invited him into his home, offering to take care of him until he could get back on his feet and go home, let him dig into his food, offered him a place to sleep, fricking got himself looking like roadkill protecting Danny from… _who knows what…_ The point is Sonic was really trying here, and the least Danny could do was appreciate what he was doing for him. He didn't have to be friends with the guy, but he should try to go easy on him.

Noon came when Danny decided to wake Sonic up when a chill went down his spine, his breath becoming a wispy streak of blue. He didn't have time to comprehend what the heck it was when he heard the screams of people in the distance and the laughter of someone else.

Danny looked out the window into the city a few miles away where he saw an explosion, followed by more laughter. It got really unnerving when it happened uninterrupted the seventh time.

"What's going on?!"

Danny's head shot around to a still-injured Sonic, who limped over to the window and stood next to his charge. Sonic growled when he saw the explosions and his quills flared in fury at the sound of psychotic laughter ringing in his ears.

"Nice to see that Eggman's up to his old tricks so soon… Evil bastard," Sonic muttered under his breath. He couldn't believe that Eggman was doing this crap already! It's only been a day! Had he no sense of shame?!

"Danny, I want you to say put so he doesn't try to capture you." The very thought of going back into the clutches of _him_ caused Danny to obey… and nearly have a panic attack to boot.

"Wh-What are you gonna do?"

"My job…" And with that, Sonic bolted and ran the few short miles over to the city, leaving Danny alone.

"I-I can't just let him go out there when he's in that state! He'll get himself killed! … But what the heck can I do?" Danny sighed and turned on the TV. Maybe the battle would be on the news by now so he could at least watch it. He wasn't too much of a coward not to watch the fight when he was perfectly safe.

Still didn't help quench the gut feeling that he should be out there helping.

* * *

The missile rain peppering the skies refused to let up. Mobians of all shapes and sizes ran away from the cause in a panic, those not fast enough unfortunately getting blown up. Only 10 minutes into the attack and there were already many casualties.

Skulker viewed the destruction from the rooftop he had perched himself upon, automatically shooting more and more missiles when there weren't enough in the sky. An annoying static filled his ears, his mike that kept him in contact with the still in space Eggman, and grumbled as he answered.

" _What are you doing wasting all your ammunition, Skulker?!"_

"Attracting my prey. You said the hedgehog comes at the first sign of others being in peril. Once I capture him, I'll use him as bait for the ghost child."

" _I think you've used_ more _than enough missiles for that, idiot. Now stop wasting your weaponry!"_

Skulker groaned in irritation and stopped the blasts. His ears still rang from the incredibly heated arguments that broke out on the way to the planet. Apparently, the two of them found each other absolutely _insufferable._

 _Skulker, give me the wheel, damn you!_

 _You're piloting the ship too slowly._

 _I'm trying not to get us blown up on some space rock in the middle of nowhere. Now GIVE ME THE WHEEL!_

"Whoa… What the heck did you tick off Eggman and get him to hitcha so hard with the ugly stick when he was making _you_?"

Skulker was snapped out of his thoughts by his prey. That blue hedgehog who had the audacity to steal away the whelp from him. He would get rid of that confident smirk the teen had faster than he could accelerate.

Without another word, Skulker floated down to be face to face with his prey. The hedgehog had more animals with him: a similar looking black hedgehog, a two-tailed yellow fox (Skulker decided he would indulge in hunting that one next), and a red echidna, all three of them sporting fatigue. He had fought with the red echidna briefly before perching on the rooftop, and he could say that he was less than impressed with the red nuisance's survival drive.

"Sonic, took you long enough. Eggman made this guy tough. Managed to get a few hits in and it didn't even faze him," the echidna said, still out of breath and licking his wounds from his failure.

"Not even my rifle can cut through the metal. I assumed it did because the shots went right through, but there's not a scratch on him." The black hedgehog told Sonic.

Sonic shot Skulker a glare before getting into a combat stance. Said glare held enough fury to silence even a rampaging ghost dragon, even while the hedgehog looked worse off than roadkill. "Maybe you guys just weren't hitting him hard enough." With a battle cry, Sonic landed a Homing Attack straight into Skulker's chest; the only reason Skulker let him hit was to gauge how strong he was. The whelp had a nasty bite. This wouldn't be easy, but Skulker knew exactly how to deal with him: use the rage Sonic had obviously built up from Eggman's apparent attack against him.

 _Oh well. Always did appreciate a more challenging hunt…_

* * *

"That hurt, skull-face?! Well, it's about to hurt more!"

Shadow, Tails, and Knuckles backed off and gave Sonic some space to fight mono a mono. They knew better than to get in his way during the rare times he was pissed; whatever Eggman did this time, it must have been bad.

Wasting no time, Sonic started his attack. He charged a Spin Dash and let it fly straight at old 'Trigger Happy and Ugly', only to be shocked when the robot suddenly turned transparent and he passed right through him.

"What the?" Sonic gave a confused look before landing and attack once again, and once again passed right through.

The robot raised an amused eyebrow in response, angering Sonic further.

"You think you're funny, huh, robot?!" Within a minute, Sonic tried about 50 more Homing Attacks and Spin Dashes in quick succession. Not a single one hit made it through.

"RGH! WHY CAN'T I HIT YOU?!" After a few more minutes of the same strategy, Sonic was wearing himself out and ready to start tearing his quills out in frustration.

"It's because I'm not just a robot, whelp…" Sonic turned and faced the robot, only to be blasted point blank by about 5 missiles. The blast shot Sonic straight into the air, and when he was about to hit the ground face first, he was ensnared in a glowing pink net. While Sonic struggled to free himself, Knuckles and Shadow sprang into action and tried to overpower the robot; once again, none of their attacks went through, the robot remaining in that see-through state. In the blink of an eye the robot backhanded Knuckles into a wall with so much force, the echidna passed out before making contact. Shadow fared a little better until the robot bodychecked him into a tree and made him see stars. Tails tried flying off to get back-up, but he was easily ensnared in a similar net to Sonic and glued to a telephone pole.

Sonic couldn't break out of the net no matter how hard he struggled. He didn't have much fight in him remaining since the blast temporarily blinded him and aggravated his injuries, leaving him too weak to try anything drastic.

"Don't bother trying to escape, prey. That net is made from a special type of ectoplasm meant to ensnare humans."

"'E-Ectoplasm'...?" Sonic said, fighting to remain conscious. "Wh-Wh-What are you… s-some kinda gho-"

"Precisely. I might as well introduce myself properly since you won't be living within the next few hours. I am Skulker, the Ghost Zone's Greatest Hunter."

"Y… You really are a ghost…?" Sonic felt black dots peppering his already faded vision as he finally started to pass out from pain. He didn't hear Skulker's answer, but he did get to see shades of a rather large green blast from behind the armored ghost before blacking out.


	6. All Even Now

Chapter 5- All Even Now

When Sonic came around, he thought he knew what to expect: A dank, dingy hole, waiting for Eggman to get his revenge and dispose of him like the rat Eggman thought he was. It was only the natural conclusion after all. Maybe Metal and that weird skeleton faced ghost, Skulker he think he called himself, would hang out in the background while he was getting ripped apart. Danny surely would have been in another cell nearby; maybe Sonic's torture would be watching the poor defenseless kid get tortured.

So then… why was Sonic on his own bed?

"Ugh…" Sonic groaned as he regained consciousness, the soft warmth of his comforter almost making him want to fall back to sleep for awhile. That was shot when she heard Amy's distinct shriek of joy call out to him.

"Sonic, you're okay!" Amy was on the blue hedgehog in an instant, gently hugging him to not cause him ay pain. Knuckles, Tails, and Shadow burst into the room as well, covered in bandages. A little glance told Sonic he was probably worse off than them.

"What happened…?" Sonic asked, still in a bit of a daze from getting hit with that missile blast.

"You passed out in the middle of the fight. Soon as that creep, Skulker was taken care of, I called Amy and we carried you all back home," Tails answered.

"What were you thinking trying to fight with all those cuts and bruises you already had?!" If Sonic wasn't so hurt, Amy would have probably slapped him in the face for his stupidity.

Sonic sighed and shook his head, "That's the problem. I wasn't thinking. I was just so mad and… well, thanks anyways for saving my butt back there, Tails. I saw that blast before I blacked out. Looked pretty sweet from my position."

Tails shared a look with the others, thinking of how he was going to break the truth to his best friend. With a sigh, Tails explained.

"Uh, Sonic… I was still trapped in a net when it happened. I couldn't do anything to help if I tried."

"Then who-?"

"This scrawny looking human kid," Knuckles answered for Tails, "Danny, I think Tails said his name was. He came into the fight firing blasts from his hands one after the other. Seemed to be the only real thing that could hurt the creep. When he took the guy down, he got us all free."

"That was _Danny?!_ " Sonic shot up in surprise, wincing when his injuries flared. He couldn't really believe it. The kid looked petrified of even going outside before Sonic left. But when he remembered the distinct green blasts Danny kept pelting him with the night before, it couldn't have been anyone else. "How… wha… why…? Where is he?!"

"In the living room resting. He was so exhausted from beating the crud out of that Skulker guy, he nearly fainted. He's awake now but-"

"Tell him to come in here and that I need to talk to him. I'd do it myself, but I'm not up to walking right now."

Knuckles and the others blinked at Sonic's urgency, but Tails knew what he was getting at. They already knew the kid was superpowered, they established that on the rocket ride home. If he could come in guns blazing like that, maybe his memory was starting to come back. If so, then what did that mean? They still barely knew anything about the guy and he wouldn't exactly be able to tell them anything.

If only they could get through those files...

"I'll go get him, Sonic," Tails flew out of the room and a few minutes later returned with a very shy looking Danny. The boy had a few bandages of his own (not that he needed them because of his apparent rapid healing), but other than that he looked no worse for wear; he just looked incredibly tired. His eyes looked around the room and glanced at everyone nervously before following Tails inside.

"Kay, now the rest of you, outta my room. The three of us need to discuss something."

Amy complied reluctantly and had to basically drag the hopelessly confused Knuckles and Shadow out with her so he could fill them in on what she knew.

Danny took a seat on the computer chair and waited to get yelled at, head hanging in mild shame. He had disobeyed Sonic and potentially put his own safety in danger all because of a stupid urge to fight Skulker.

Sonic allowed his features to soften. He had to put in more of an effort to befriend Danny in order to get him to work with everyone and making him think he was angry with him wouldn't help. Sonic wasn't that angry at all, far from it really. But then getting your life saved doesn't exactly constitute anger.

"Alright, so," Sonic began, "why don't you start by telling me what happened."

Danny nodded slowly, took a deep breath, and began to tell the two what went on with him during the battle.

" _I-I can't just let him go out there when he's in that state! He'll get himself killed! … But what the heck can I do?"_

 _A press of the remote made the flat screen flicker on, and as Danny predicted, he was met with live coverage of the devastation. It didn't look pretty._

 _Half of the buildings were already leveled, and in such a short time. Unconscious and charred bodies of the unlucky or slow lines the streets and explosions went off one after the other. Those who escaped the devastation hid inside of a train station._

" _This is Rouge the Bat live with coverage of the devastation of Station Square. A missile rain has penetrated the clear blue skies previously observed, all of which appear to be coming from a new Eggman robot. The man has had little to no activity for the past four months, but his hiatus appears to be over." The camera panned over to the 'robot' responsible, fighting one-sidedly with Shadow and Knuckles. "Currently, Knuckles the Echidna- hiya, Knuckie…" the bat interrupted herself seductively towards Knuckles._

" _Don't you have a_ job _to do, Bat Girl?" Knuckles glared and got right back to it._

" _-And Shadow the Hedgehog- You still haven't called me back yet, Shadow." The reported now pouted and glared. How can this girl be so unprofessional?_

" _Shut it," Shadow all but snarled, not bothering looking into the camera at the risk of losing focus._

 _Rouge cleared her throat and continued with the report, "-are trying to subdue the robot quickly and without any more casualties." The camera panned and zoomed to get a closer look at the robot._

 _It was at this point that Danny stopped paying attention altogether, mesmerized by the look of the attacking robot._

 _The moment he glanced at that suit, a heavy feeling in his mind rammed into him that screamed 'Familiar!' He couldn't help but feel he should remember who the robot was. But how should he know, he was just another one of_ his _robots, right?_

 _Then, a flash. Danny was assaulted with image after image of the robot, now recognized as Skulker. There were fights, team-ups, a purple back gorilla in there (why the hell would a gorilla be involved?), prison (!), and flashes of this strange white-haired, green-eyed ghost in reflections. That particular ghost confused Danny more than about Skulker._

 _And then there were the flashes of power. Little snippets of soaring through the air (Danny could fly?!), ecto blasts bursting into Skulker, intangibility (is_ that _what happened to the cabinet yesterday…?), and invisibility were what he identified by the time the little flashbacks ended._

 _By the time the flashbacks were done, Danny remembered Skulker, how to use a few of his powers (unfortunately not how he got them, which confused him greatly), and the existence of purple back gorillas. And he couldn't be more ecstatic._

" _Whoa…" Danny was clutching his seat without even realizing it. As he let go, he let out a mirthful laugh. It was the first time he remembered that past four months that he felt truly happy. Happiness was soon joined by eagerness; now that he knew he had these powers, he just_ had _to test them out. And now that he knew about them, they came easy, unlike with yesterday's dilemma. He turned invisible and intangible on a whim and a simple snap of his wrist let out a small ecto blast that barely left a dent in Sonic's wall. He also tried flying, but he could barely hover off the ground._

 _Regardless of the current inability to completely fly, Danny was still overjoyed… until he paid attention to the news once again, and the reporter bat screaming in terror._

" _-ic the Hedgehog has just been captured by the robot!" He looked and he saw a very weakened looking Sonic trapped inside of one of Skulker's nets, struggling to get free as his friends were incapacitated one by one. The gut feeling came back once again, and with the rediscovery of some of his powers and the fact he'd beaten the armored ghost many times before, Danny couldn't help but listen to the urge this time. He quickly bolted out of the house and zoomed over to the city with the endurance and speed of an Olympian._

 _When he got to the sight, he faltered a bit at the damages. More of the city was wrecked, and the train station that had been housing the survivors had major damage, making Danny's blood boil. The moment he spotted Skulker towering over the defenseless Sonic, he couldn't help himself and fired the largest ecto blast the human could make. Danny knew it wasn't as strong as it could have been, but it was enough to get Skulker to back off and pay attention to him._

" _Whelp?!" Skulker said with a look of disbelief before twisting into a condescending sneer, "I thought you were hidden away somewhere like a coward…"_

" _Funny coming from someone who hides under an ugly exosuit to get the job done," Danny taunted effortlessly, as if he had been doing so for a such a long time it became natural. This caused Skulker to snarl._

" _You won't find it funny once I have yours and your friend's pelt…"_

 _...Was this guy talking about skinning Danny and Sonic alive like he was talking about going shopping? Danny unconsciously shuddered and got into a battle stance before shooting off another ecto blast at the unprepared Skulker._

" _You're going to fight me in_ human _form? I take it you have a death wish then." Skulker shot a blast and Danny, deciding to ignore the perplexing comment for now (human form?), turned intangible to avoid it, then pounced, and the fight began._

 _Danny made quick work of Skulker, who complained about the boy's "lack of witty banter", and destroyed his armor, revealing his true form. The tiny ghost writhed around in Danny's grasp before he was punted far away from the city, a threat to no one in the state he was in._

 _Wasting no more time, he freed Tails and worked with him to get everyone back to Sonic's house for recovery._

"Dang dude…" Sonic said softly once Danny was finished with his tale, "Wish I could have been awake to see his wimpy 'true form'. I think that would have been a real nice pickmeup."

"Trust me, he's really not that threatening once the armor's off." Danny said with a small laugh.

"So, you DID start to remember," Tails said, causing Danny to curl up shyly and nod.

"You said you saw this other ghost in your memories of Skulker. Can you tell us anything else about it? We should probably learn about as many of these ghosts as we can just in case," Sonic asked, hopeful that Danny was willing to talk to them now.

"Only a little bit about its appearance and that's it." Danny shook his head solemnly, wishing he could remember more, and he shivered a bit at Sonic's tone towards the ghost. He knew the hedgehog had no reason to see the ghost as benevolent, but still… Danny had a gut feeling that the ghost really wouldn't mean them any harm.

"Anyways guys, now that Sonic's okay, I'm gonna go back home and try to sort out the files we got from Eggman." Tails said, heading for the door and waving at the two.

"Files?" Danny turned to Sonic and tilted his head, causing Sonic to grin sheepishly.

"Well, ya see, Tails jacked a bunch of files from Eggman, but most of the stuff is heavily encrypted. If Tails can break into them, then we can learn more about his motives. Plus, uh… he had a lot of files on you too. That's how we learned your name and stuff." Sonic saw the anxious and mildly hurt look Danny gave him and raised his hands in defense. "I swear, we only got info on your medical stuff and your name. Anything else about you in there, we want your permission to look at. You tell us to back off and we'll back off, hedgehog's honor," Sonic said with a smile, right hand over heart, left raised in the air.

Danny thought about it for a minute, deciding to calm himself. He had to remind himself that they were only trying to help. However, it stung a bit that they looked at his files without permission before.

"...Fine. If he gets them unlocked, you guys can read them, but I wanna be there when you do." Danny said with a nod to himself and a matter-of-fact tone telling Sonic this wasn't up for debate.

 _So he still doesn't trust us…_ Sonic thought sadly, but he agreed to the terms and texted the deal to Tails.

The two of them sat in awkward silence before Shadow and Knuckles burst into the room, demanding to know who Danny was and what the heck was going on. Amy gave the two younger teens a look and said she held them back as long as she could. The boys sighed in unison and looked at each other, wondering where to even begin.


	7. The Amity Park Horror Show

Chapter 6- The Amity Park Horror Show

"...and so the point is, my partner sort of… became completely obsolete?"

Vlad stood in mild shock when he saw the extent of the damage to Skulker and his suit. The suit was barely recognizable; Vlad wouldn't have been able to identify it without Eggman telling him what it was. It was blown to bits in a timely and destructive manner, with green tinted burn marks that point directed to Daniel. But… that should have been impossible! He should be in a completely useless state, unable to know how to use a single ecto blast!

Vlad pinched his nose to keep from attacking Eggman out of rage then and there. Didn't stop him from screaming out his anger. "I thought you told me you were pumping him full of my formula and that he couldn't remember a single thing you dolt!"

"I was! The first week you gave me that stuff, he was a barely functioning goober who couldn't even remember how to blink! I had to get a robot to do it for him!"

That was what Vlad feared. Along with the 'gift' of Danny four months ago came a special serum, designed to suppress the recall process of memory and essentially cause amnesia. This worked in Eggman's favor because the serum made Danny docile with a complete inability to defend himself, allowing him to experiment with little to no repercussions. This formula was, sadly, meant to be continuously inserted into the bloodstream day after day to continue working. Without another dose, it was only a matter of time before Danny got his memories back, something Vlad didn't want to deal with. Fortunately the boy would likely go through a withdrawal period in due time, making the process of catching him easier, but not by a large margin with that hedgehog. To put it bluntly, Vlad found a weak and harmless Danny was more tolerable than a snarky, insufferable, powered one.

Semi-murderous rage seeping through, he snatched the unconscious Skulker and swiftly sucked him into a thermos, surprising Eggman when he saw it.

"Is that a… soup can?" Eggman blinked.

"It's called a 'Fenton Thermos'. It's designed to suck up ghosts for containment."

"Why don't we just use it on the boy?"

"Because while human, he's immune to it." Vlad said simply. "I need to make a phone call. Wait here until I return." With that, Vlad used his portal creating device to return to Amity Park.

* * *

Instantly upon return, he was meant with the snarls and enraged cries of one Samantha Manson, once again having broken into his office with her little nerdy friend, Tucker Foley. Vlad watched them unfaltered as he took a seat in his mayoral chair.

"I assume you both came without an appointment yet again." Vlad said with a sigh, already knowing the answer. "It's a wonder why I don't just get a security guard to stay in the room at all times."

"Maybe because then you'd have a witness to how much of an evil bastard you really are," Sam spat, and Tucker had to grab her to hold her back from lunging at the old man.

"So, to what do I owe the pleasure of you interrupting my day? I'm a very busy man, you know."

"Let me handle this, Sam," Tucker whispered to his fuming friend. He wasn't exactly in a talking mood, especially towards probably the most evil man in the East US, but he would be a better option than Sam right now, who explicitly told Tucker all the particularly nasty things she was willing to do to Vlad when she got her hands on him.

It had been four months since they last saw their best friend, and Amity Park was falling apart to ghost attacks. Without the town's controversial but effective hero, Danny Phantom, ghosts were less afraid to set foot in the small town, now free to haunt, destroy, and scare to their heart's content. School was canceled a month in because of the frequency and magnitude of attacks, all of the food ended up being stolen by Youngblood one day (people were shocked more by the fact that ghosts could even eat human food) so he could 'play supermarket', so people had to leave the city for food, beg to the rich, or risk starving, and everyone remained off the streets unless their lives depended on otherwise.

Sam and Tucker tried to take care of it themselves, along with the assistance of the Fentons and the Red Huntress, but it wasn't enough.

Danny said he was going on a trip through the Ghost Zone to pay his friend and ally, Frostbite, a visit, but after a week of absence, it became concerning. The Fentons couldn't believe the kids when they told them, thinking it to be outrageous that Danny would even bother setting foot in the Ghost Zone. Needless to say secrets had to be spilled that day; there was no other quick option. Once it sunk in, the Fentons joined Sam and Tucker's frantic search for Danny. They spent an entire month straight in the Ghost Zone searching for him, only to turn up nothing; not even the local ghosts knew where he was.

They had all but resigned and given up the search when they picked up on Vlad and his conversations with a new interdimensional friend the week before.

"Look, Vlad, we know you took him. We'll do whatever you want, just give Danny back," Tucker attempted to negotiate. "Amity Park's going downhill fast without him."

"Unless you get Maddie to divorce Jack and come here to be my wife or convince Green Bay to give me the Packers, I see nothing you have that I want. Besides, I no longer have Daniel in my possession."

"WHAT?!" The two teenagers said simultaneously.

"I've given him to a colleague of mine for the purpose of well mannered study."

"You gave him to that psychopath you've been talking to?!" Sam immediately regretted letting slip that they knew of Eggman's apparent involvement in this, for Vlad shot them his trademark sinister smirk.

"It's not polite to eavesdrop, children. However, if you want Daniel…" Vlad turned in his chair to the wall, portal creator in hand, and created a rather large one with a vacuum effect. He was a safe enough distance to not be affected, but Sam and Tucker weren't so lucky, being rapidly swept off of the ground.

"...then you can go get him!"

The two teenagers were sucked into a portal to who knows where, with Vlad snatching the weapons they had on hand just as they were about to follow them in.

"Now then. Back to the matter at hand." As of nothing had happened, Vlad moved on to make his phone call. Selecting lines that connected to the Ghost Zone, he made sure to call a ghost that at least wasn't a complete failure like Skulker.

"Afternoon, Ms. McLain. If you could, I would like to request a favor."

"And what's in it for me, Pops?" Ember McLain said on the other end, lounging in her lair with her guitar in hand.

"I'll tell you now that you'll have a chance to put on quite a show, somewhere where you can make new fan after new fan…" Vlad said, smile never faltering even after the juvenile ghost called him 'Pops'.

In an instant, Ember was definitely intrigued.

 _ **No bonding this chapter, so sorry. But on the bright side, we've got another ghost and Sam and Tucker involved now.**_


	8. Spectral Roadblocks

Chapter 7- Spectral Roadblocks

Over the next few days, everything was pretty calm within the Hedgehog Manor. Eggman hadn't made any other attempts to ruin the city or cause trouble, and within a few days, Sonic was back on his feet. He was pretty psyched too. Slowly but surely, Danny began to open up to him, occasionally coming into Sonic's room to chat when he got too lonely. It couldn't have been about much, maybe about the weather or about a couple of the things he began to recall, but it was a chat nonetheless. It made Sonic feel really good to help someone who was so bad off.

Since the battle with Skulker, nothing else popped back into Danny's memory, but he was able to practice with his abilities. He frequented Sonic's gym like he owned the place, eager to get rid of the pathetic look he had unwittingly created for himself. As time went on, he began to feel much more comfortable, though still keeping an unavoidable air of slight paranoia. He couldn't help himself; Danny thought Eggman would come after him at any moment.

It was the beginning of the 5th day, and Sonic decided it would finally be the right time to properly make up the guest bedroom. He and Danny were in a little known super market (perfect to ease Danny's fears of being found) picking out paints and furniture. It was a struggle to get Danny to even leave the house and get some air, but he eventually got him to. He was very jumpy and constantly looked over his shoulder, but it was progress.

"You got any idea what color you want the walls to be?" Sonic asked as he looked around the swatches in the paint aisle for a good choice.

"I dunno." Danny shrugged, stopping the cart so he could help out. "What color do you think'd be good?"

"This'd be easy if your knew your favorite color..." Sonic said absentmindedly. He stopped at the shades of green and started picking through the samples. "You like this one?" he asked, holding up a pear colored swatch.

"...Is that supposed to be green…?" Danny said with a look of disbelief at the unflattering color, "It looks like snot. How about this one?" Danny held up a baby blue swatch, the exact same color as Sonic's room.

"Dude, you gotta pick a different color than that. We won't be able to tell our rooms apart." Sonic said, laughing lightly.

"Well, I kinda like that shade of blue in your room. It feels really comforting in a weird way."

Sonic finally got a bit of a clue on what to look for. He thought blue was comforting? Well, then, that's what he was going to get. He strolled over to the blue section and started sifting through them all for a good color.

Meanwhile, Danny let his gaze drift into the purple section. Inside, he found a particular shade that he was drawn to, the Amethyst shade. He picked up the swatch and stared at it for awhile, analyzing it critically and carefully as if it were a priceless work of art. The heavy feeling at the back of his mind surfaced and he was shot with a single image of this random girl. When he shook it off, a look of certainty crossed his features. Though he had NO idea who the girl was, the purple shade suddenly resonated with him in a way he didn't consider before. For no other shade could describe the beauty he saw in the girl's eyes. "Hey, Sonic?"

Sonic, practically submerged in a sea of swatches thrown on the ground by mistake, shot his head up and stared up at his charge.

"I think I found the color I want." Sonic zipped next to the boy and blinked when he saw the color. It looked so… so bright! Not really what he expected Danny would want.

"You sure? It's kind of a girly color."

"Yeah," Danny said quietly with a nod, "Yeah, I'm sure."

Shrugging without questioning further, Sonic took the swatch and went to go look for the necessary paint. He was stopped when the angry owner showed up and saw all of the discarded swatches on the ground.

"Sonic, _again?!_ What does this look like, a barn?! Pick these up!" The owner and Danny watched as Sonic grumbled and cleaned. The comically angry glare Sonic had the whole time made Danny snicker.

"You want some help?" Danny said, trying his best to sound sincere. Sonic looked him dead in the eye, expression clearly telling him to shut up, before finishing and getting back to shopping.

"S-Sorry for laughing. You're just funny when you're grumpy," Danny said, hands in jeans and looking sadly at the ground. Sonic looked at him and sighed, his roommate reminding him of a little kid who just got scolded. That reaction should only be reserved for Shadow.

"Yeah, yeah, D. Just help me pick out some more colors, will ya?" Hesitating, Danny nodded slowly, getting back to work. In the end, he had picked out black, white, dark blue, and a few smaller cans for background things. Sonic wondered why, but the rest of the purchases and their common theme gave him a hint.

When they got to bedding, Danny was immediately drawn to a comforter with a rocket ship adorned onto it. They got to lamps and he was all over one that looked like the Milky Way's solar system. Half a dozen of the posters had something to do with outer space, others with, surprisingly, the paranormal (mostly goofy depictions of ghosts) and… puppies? Finally he insisted on Sonic getting him a built-it-yourself model space station.

If he didn't know any better, Sonic thought that if he hadn't been stuck with Eggman and didn't have amnesia, Danny would be having a ball up in space until the worries of being in another dimension set in. The hedgehog found the unconscious fascination really cute, and an opportunity to learn more about the boy.

"So, I take it you're really into space stuff, huh?" Sonic asked as they unpacked the supplies into the manor. The question caused the younger boy to falter.

"W-what do you mean?"

"Well, it's just that you picked up a lot of stuff that relates to it. The paints even look like if you put it together, it could even make up an Earth Solar System."

He hadn't realized it before, but looking at all of the purchases, they did share that common theme. A sudden flash of his now unlocked memories gave him views of a room, perceived to be his old room back home. It was adorned with scale models, posters, and even what looked to be self sketched schematics of rockets and famous astronauts. The room was a total mess too, not unlike what Sonic's place was when he first came.

 _Astronaut_ , Danny realized as the memory finished. That's right, he wanted to be one when he grew up!

He was about to tell Sonic this when just then, a dizzy feeling overcame the boy, unlike with the last time a memory became unlocked. It alarmed him further as he suddenly struggled to stay conscious, a weak, sick feeling washing over him. He didn't feel too healthy at the moment, like he had a bad flu. However, even he didn't think the flu would start jumbling up his thoughts as badly as he experienced. Soon still, he began to feel warm, and began to stagger and tremble.

Sonic felt deep concern when Danny started to stagger where he stood in a daze. The human nearly fell over before Sonic caught him and held him steady. "Danny, are you okay?"

"Jus' thinking bout space, Mr. Kitty Cat…" Danny slurred. "I think I went to space couple times…" He blinked blearily to try and focus his vision and laughed a little at the talking blue cat he found himself with. He looked kinda funny with his ears tickling him like that.

"'Mr. Kitty Cat…?' What the hell…?" Sonic looked at his charge, stumped. He was normal only seconds ago. What had gotten into him?

Not being able to think of any ways he could help… whatever this was on his own, he placed the now incoherently rambling Danny on the ground and called Tails over. Surely he would know what was going on.

"Hello?" Tails answered, voice sounding startled from the sudden phone call.

"Tails, get over here right away."

* * *

The trio were in the living room a half-hour later, Sonic sitting on a chair by the coffee table while Tails looked Danny over on the couch.

"It's not poisoning, is it? We went out to eat at a burger joint before we came home."

"This looks nothing like food poisoning, Sonic. _Poisoning_ poisoning is more like it." Tails replied, feverishly looking over vitals as he tried figuring out this latest puzzle. Danny had developed a high fever of about 98 degrees. Considering his normal temperature was considered hypothermic for normal humans (which Tails still didn't understand), this was a bad development. And so he juggled trying to cool him off with figuring out what was wrong. "With _what_ is the mystery."

Danny blinked a few times and let his unfocused gaze fall on the yellow thing next to him, a glint of fear in his eyes. "What's tha yellow mouse thingy wit tha lightin' tail doin' here…?"

"He's just trying to take care of you buddy." Sonic said. He didn't know if Danny considered the two of them actual friends instead of allies with a common enemy, but Sonic sure did, there was no mistaking it.

"Hoh-kay, Mr. Kitty Cat…" Danny said as he relaxed the tenseness that had built up. He almost fell asleep, but the yellow mouse thingy (he decided to call him Mr. Zappy from now on just to make it easier) wouldn't let him, poking at him with really sharp things seemingly every time he drifted off. It got annoying quickly, and Danny started to shove away Mr. Zappy's paw when he tried it again.

"Hey, come on, stop that" Tails told the ailing boy, "I'm only trying to get a blood sample. It'll only hurt for a bit" Eventually Danny seemed to give up trying to stop him, so he got the sample easily. It was still really strange and unsettling for the two anthros to see the green substance in Danny's blood, a substance they _knew_ shouldn't belong in a human.

"Fascinating…" Tails said to himself. "Sonic, watch him while I run so tests on his blood to see if there's anything there shouldn't be in it."

"Gotcha, Tails," Sonic replied easily, moving to plop down next to the couch while his sick pal slept.

* * *

Over the next several hours, Tails did absolutely nothing but study the blood sample, and what he found was simply incredible.

The regular red blood ran cooler than usual, mildly explaining Danny's colder body temperature. Tails still had no idea how that was possible, but maybe he'd figure it out in due time. There was also a strange poison in it- a substance from Eggman most likely; a tranquilizer or something so he could do… _things_ to poor Danny without resistance. He would have to isolate it and see if it had some kind of delayed effect. Other than that, the red aspects of the blood were completely normal.

It was the odd green 'blood' that caught Tails' attention the most, and even though he should REALLY have been working on figuring out that drug, he couldn't help but study the green substance the most. It was thick, Tails noticed. Thick and sticky like a sort of maple syrup, like it should have been clotting up Danny's systems like bad cholesterol. It glowed slightly; Sonic wasn't really kidding when he said it looked like toxic waste, now that Tails was able to get a clear look. Instead of normal and natural luminescence, however, this looked somehow more… ethereal. More supernatural.

If Tails didn't know any better, it almost looked like the green stuff that Skulker was oozing.

 _Skulker was a ghost, wasn't he? Weren't ghosts made out of ectoplasm?_ Tails mused, chuckling slightly at the notion that Danny might have ectoplasm as part of his natural systems. For it to not severely harm him, Tails remembered from the ghostly lessons his good friend, Professor of Luigi's Mansion fame, gave him, he would have to be a ghost, but how could you be a ghost and a human at the same time?

Still… with as weird a kid as Danny actually was once you looked at him critically, it wasn't a possibility to just shrug off.

To try and debunk this and regain some sureness, Tails compared the green blood with the ectoplasm he retrieved. He set up tests on their structures, to try and disprove any notion that they were similar…

...and it only proved that both samples were ectoplasm all the same. They were surely different types, he noted, but that didn't change anything.

"B-But… that's not right. Danny's human; he shouldn't have ectoplasm inside of him!"

But the more Tails thought about it, the more it made sense. During the fight, Danny shot green blasts (Danny called them 'Ecto Blasts' from what the boy remembered; 'Ecto Blasts'… 'ectoplasm blasts'); a couple of times his eyes glowed an unnatural toxic green as well from what Tails could only assume was from rage. When Skulker shot at him the few times he could, Danny _phased_ right through them in avoidance and turned invisible to gain the element of surprise, a similar thing Tails and Amy saw when they were treating Danny's initial wounds. Sonic even said he walked in the day before the big battle on Danny's arm being stuck in the cabinet door and saw the boy pull his arm right out before going back to his room and trying to process what he saw. The reason Sonic's place was so messed up was because of Danny shooting blasts in his sleep, Sonic told him, and the hedgehog noted him doing it other times within the past few days.

So… Danny was some kind of ghost?!

But that still wasn't right. Ghosts don't have human blood, and yet Danny does. Maybe he wasn't a full ghost, but rather…

With a sigh, Tails went back into the living room to tell Sonic of his findings. He was lucky to find Danny still passed out for this; it wouldn't be easy to explain this to the amnesic kid.

"Hey, Sonic?"

Sonic jumped, awoken from some kind of trance-like stupor at the sound of Tails' voice. He must have been thinking about something.

"U-Uh… yeah Tails? You figure out what was wrong?"

"Not exactly, but, uh… I-I found something else out. Something kinda big."

"Yeah, what is it?" Sonic said, suddenly very interested.

"Well… I-I think… I think Danny might be part ghost."

* * *

"Tucker, you have any idea why bipedal talking orange sheep are staring at us?"

"Nope. You got me there."

Sam and Tucker were dumbfounded. What the heck was this place anyways?!

They thought that Vlad would send them into the Ghost Zone, but instead they woke up in some kind of forest. It sort of reminded the two teenagers of the forest surrounding Lake Eerie, only with more trees, untouched by deforestation. That and there was no lake to be seen.

Walking through went smoothly; they weren't ravaged by wild animals and there weren't any bugs coming to suck them dry. It was only _after_ they got out of the main bulk of the forest and onto a clearing did things get weird. _Really_ weird. For waiting for them on the opening was a family of sheep having a picnic and walking and talking like man. Even as a nature lover, it freaked Sam out much more than Tucker.

Not that the sheep family reacted well either.

Though used to humans, it was unsettling seeing them creep around the forest like that.

"Can I help you?" the large male sheep, presumably the father, asked the two frightened teens.

"Uh… You guys wouldn't happen to be really advanced ghosts, would you?" Tucker asked meekly, hugging a tree for protection.

The little lambs started to laugh at them, as if the mention of ghosts alone were a joke.

"Are you guys serious?" the boy lamb asked, "Ghosts don't exist, sillies."

This caused the two teens to look at each other warily; Amity Park was well documented enough by outsiders to have it be common knowledge ghosts existed.

"Sorry for interrupting, we'll just be going now, bye!" Sam said a little too quickly, dragging Tucker along. Tucker managed to glimpse at the lambs awkwardly waving at the two before focusing on having family fun again.

They soon discovered that probably wouldn't be the last talking animals they would see as they finally reached a city chock full of them.


	9. Sights For Sore Eyes

Chapter 8- Sights For Sore Eyes

"P… _Part ghost?!_ "

Sonic was struck dumb, trying to process what Tails was telling him.

Like how the hell could someone be part ghost, but still be obviously very much alive?!

The hedgehog looked back and forth between Tails, then Danny, then back to Tails over and over, unable to really understand.

"Look, I don't get it either, Sonic," Tails admitted, "All I know is that a generous portion of blood is that glowing green substance. When you compare it to a full-on ghost's ectoplasm, it's unmistakable."

"B-But… Does he look like a ghost to you, dude?!"

"Think about it, Sonic. He has the stable abilities to walk through walls and disappear into thin air. He shoots blasts _made_ out of ectoplasm. Have you noticed that his eyes sometimes glow green when his emotions are intense enough, too?"

After thinking about it, Sonic couldn't help but nod. Being part ghost was the only reason that could possibly explain all of the abilities Danny had.

"H-How do you think he ended up like that…?" Sonic asked himself warily, other, much darker thoughts threatening to overwhelm him. Ghosts were dead, first and foremost. And if Danny was part ghost, did that mean that he could be…?

Sonic shook the bad thoughts out of his head. Now more than ever, he REALLY wanted Tails to dig into those files so they could learn more about this.

"We won't really know for sure until we can ask. Until then, we'll just have to be content with what we know. This really helps me a lot actuall-"

Sonic suddenly put a hand over Tails' mouth to silence him, his ears flicking and twitching madly. "Tails, do you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"It sounds like… singing?"

Tails stood there with a confused expression. Being a mechanic who worked with a lot of machinery and deadly chemicals, his hearing wasn't as good as Sonic's. It was hard for him to tell what Sonic was talking about until he focused hard enough. When he did, he was met with… a pleasant surprise to say the least.

Somewhere, inside of the city, from what Tails could tell, someone was singing, and he was sure he heard an amazing sounding guitar melody in there as well. He'd never heard anything like it before, and was about to go to the TV to see if there was a cause reported on the news when he noticed his pal was gone.

"Sonic?" Tails looked around and spotted him headed towards the city outside. He quickly flew out and caught up, stopping in front of Sonic to make him quit running. "Where are you going; we gotta figure out that poison, remember?"

"Are you kidding, and miss out on that awesome concert going on?!" Sonic said, more enthusiastic than Tails had seen him in months. Sonic, though he absolutely was enthusiastic about everything he did, it was never to the extent he was showing now.

"You can't just leave, I need your help," Tails said, grabbing Sonic's arm in an attempt to bring him back with him, but Sonic jerked away and took off running. Tails got in front of him again and grabbed him, less than amused.

"Sonic, I'm not kidding, you need to come back with me."

"But I don't _wanna…_ I _need_ to go to that concert!" Sonic said, getting incredibly agitated the longer Tails held him down. Tails wouldn't let him go, however. He had a feeling there was more to this than just a little desire… Sonic seemed borderline obsessed to go to whatever concert he was talking about… almost to a mindless degree.

Without further hesitation, Tails took a deep, critical look at his best friend's eyes and didn't like what he saw. Normally, the hedgehog's emerald eyes were bright, clear, warm, focused. Now, to Tails, they were dull, clouded, and slightly wall-eyed even. Which could only mean one thing, Tails concluded: Whatever this music was, it was most likely hypnotizing him.

"What the heck are you staring at me for…?" Sonic said, not liking how up-in-his-face Tails was getting.

"Sonic, we need to get you back home _now!"_ Tails, not taking any chances of him running away, flew Sonic back home, the blue teen protesting and whining the whole time. He tried desperately to get out of Tails' grip, but it was a grip of steel. There was no way he was letting Sonic go to that concert; something _majorly_ screwy was going on. The second they got through the door, Tails tied Sonic to a chair with rope that Sonic's quills couldn't break.

"LET ME GO!" Sonic struggled with the chair while Tails turned on the news. Station Square was once again utter chaos.

" _It's total pandemonium in Station Square. Tommy the Skunk reporting, filling in for Rouge the Bat while she's… while she's out."_ The camera panned to Rouge in the crowd, screaming like a little fangirl. Every single person in the crowd screamed 'EMBER' ad nauseum, all of them obviously in the same trance Sonic was in. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sonic trying to puff out his quills to break the rope, but the rope was too strong for him.

The reporter went to discuss how the entire Mobian teenager population of Station Square has seemingly lost their damn minds. Humans, and Mobians younger than 13 and older than 20 were unaffected, but that didn't solve anything when you realized that teenagers basically _ran_ the place and that many of the heroes that constantly patrolled around were teenagers themselves.

The camera panned to the cause of the madness: a pasty faced teenage rocker girl with _insane_ looking hair that almost looked like it was on fire and an admittedly really cool looking guitar

Tails saw the girl finish her first song before looking at the camera with a sadistic smile and blasting it with some kind of fist-shaped wave from her guitar. Looked sort of like one of Danny's Ecto Blasts… wait a sec.

 _Oh, for the love of Chaos, ANOTHER ONE…?!_

He could see Shadow, an anomaly with his own age (he's over fifty years old, has the body of a teenager, and is technically an infant.), try and sneak over to the group to attack Ember, but she played a cord on her guitar. The resulting sonic blast caused over half of the zombified teens to turn feral and attack Shadow, eyes glowing a deep red. He was quickly overwhelmed and tied to a street lamp, leaving nothing to stand in his way.

"This is getting out of control…" Tails quietly told himself.

Tails weighed his options. This was a ghost he was talking about. Normal weapons would have no effect on her. Sonic could probably hold her off, but he's so brainwashed, he can barely speak in coherent sentences anymore, notable by his shrieks and cries for Tails to free him. And the only one who _could_ fight her was poisoned and currently out of his marbles.

Sadly, the last one was his best bet. It was time to start working on getting rid of that poison.

How Danny slept through Sonic shrieking his vocal cords raw, Tails will never know, but it helped the kit get another couple of blood samples without resistance.

* * *

After a quick few scans, the computer picked it up as a particularly nasty sounding drug, one from another dimension, no less.

"'Warning: Should only be used as a mild sedative; only works on 'projections of post-human consciousness'. Overdose can contribute to problems such as 'fainting' spells (ghosts cannot lose consciousness; they can only fake doing so), 'seizures', distortion of senses, hallucinations, further delusions of grandeur, paranoia, increases in aggressive behavior, and mild to acute memory loss (from current ghostly life, of course; ghosts cannot possibly remember how they died).

"'Fenton Works is not liable to damages caused by injection into ghostly entity… Jack Rules!'"

… Did that legal label just say ' _Fenton_ Works'?

Wasting little time, Tails conducted a search on the manufacturer, and what he found was a little eye opening. The drug injected by Eggman came from a ghost-hunting business in Amity Park called Fenton Works, owned by Jack and Maddie Fenton. The main page had a picture of the whole family. Outside of a garishly lit building stood four figures; a large, rotund, goofy looking man in an orange jumpsuit; a far smaller, kindly looking woman in a teal jump suit, wearing what appeared to be red lab goggles; a girl about as tall as the woman with brilliant orange hair and an annoyed look on her face; and a lanky looking boy with ebony hair, a white and red shirt, and jeans with his arm wrapped around the girl's, presumably the sister, neck, a sweet, yet mischievous smile clear on his face.

He was looking at a picture of Danny's family, alright.

 _Imagine that. A partly-ghost kid in a family of ghost hunters… actually, no, that's one of the scariest scenarios ever._

Shuddering the bad thoughts out and thinking the best (perhaps his parents didn't even know and even so he couldn't just keep the boy from his parents without knowing anything about their relationship), Tails wrote down their number for later. His transporter didn't go that far yet, but his communicator screen sure did. With that he moved on to inventions to see if they left more info on their tranquilizer.

Tails was honestly impressed with many of the gadgets the couple had built. An array of ghost harming weaponry, a bazooka that acted as a portal gun, contraptions designed to contain ghosts (including of all things one that looked like a soup can… okay then.), an amazing looking mech suit, and a ghost translator. Although Tails was stumped with that one; most ghosts obviously spoke perfect English, so why try translating them? Finally, Tails got to the tranquilizer, the website saying it would wear off once a ghost has had time to recuperate; a ghost usually took an hour tops to recover.

It's already been at least 6 hours since the kid conked out and he's still out of it! Tails needed Danny to help him stop all of the teen zombies!

Tails groaned. There had to be SOMETHING he could do.

* * *

Meanwhile, Danny woke up to quite a sight. Mr. Zappy, thankfully, left him alone, but Mr. Kitty Cat looked like he was in a lot of pain. That, and he somehow got his head on the body of a worm.

"What's the matter, Mr. Kitty Cat…?" Danny asked with a pout and head tilt, no longer so slurred but still in a dreamy sounding sound of his voice didn't make the worm-bodied cat so much as flinch, continuing to squirm aimlessly around. In the back of his mind, Danny thought he could hear incessant banging, but it must have been in his imagination. Or not. Everything sounded like it was underwater no matter what.

"I'll help you, Mr. Kitty Cat...!" Danny cried in a chipper voice, all but tackling the cat with as much force as he could muster to get the blue kitty to stop squirming. Funny though, he only squirmed more… real weird. He thought he felt something else really spiky and painful under him, but he shrugged it off and got up. Suddenly, the blue worm-kitty turned into a blue _eagle_ -kitty, and with a little dust cloud poof, it was gone from sight. Perplexed, Danny stumbled after him, into a sort of candyland that he had to fight to not get completely lost in.

* * *

After about five minutes of tinkering,Tails was able to convert an old laser gun gifted to him by G.U.N. into a makeshift Ecto Gun. By purifying the ectoplasm he had picked up from Danny and Skulker, he was able to make about 5 cartridges of ammunition. Perfect to take Ember down. If only he had a way to contain her…

"One thing at a time, Miles…" Tails picked up his makeshift gun and headed into the living room to leave… only to be met with an empty room and a shattered chair where Sonic should have been.

"WHAT THE?!" Tails looked frantically around the room and saw no trace of the two older boys, save for a wide open door and a trail of ashes leading off into the city. The fox facepalmed and groaned before taking off after them.

* * *

Sam and Tucker looked around the city they had stumbled upon, in awe of how fast it fell apart.

When they arrived, it was a totally normal looking place, apart from the humans and animals living together; that was still weird. The two groups lived together in peace, helping each other when one needed the other, befriended one another. They even held a conversation with a friendly pink hedgehog when she noticed they looked lost, relaxing in the process. Maybe their situation wasn't so bad.

That was when _it_ started. The two teens and the hedgehog were having a conversation about their boyfriends (Sam didn't say much but, apparently, they both had a thing for superheroes. Small world, even in other dimensions). Sam glared when she heard a familiar rock melody and suddenly saw many of the animals go mad in front of her. Tucker pulled her and the girl, Amy she said her name was, and hid behind an alley to avoid being trampled by a bunch of hypnotized animal teens.

"What's _Ember_ doing here?!" Sam hissed to Tucker, who only answered with a confused head shake.

"You two know her?" Amy asked them.

"She's from _our_ dimension," Tucker explained, "She can hypnotize people with her music. Don't know why she needs to, she's actually real talented," he finished with too fond a smile for Sam's liking, causing her to smack him in the back of the head. "Hey, what was that for?!"

"Just making sure," was all Sam said. Amy couldn't hold back her chuckles; these two were a riot.

"Do you guys know how to stop her? I need to call Sonic and tell him about this."

"He wouldn't be able to do anything to her. She's a ghost, so-"

"Another one?!" Amy balked. Why the heck were ghosts suddenly popping up out of nowhere?!

Sam and Tucker blinked at her reaction. So ghosts from their world were randomly attacking the city now? That couldn't have been a coincidence.

It didn't take long before another sap showed up into Ember's audience: A crazy looking blue hedgehog with bright red sneakers.

"Sonic?!" Amy called out in horror. "She got to him too?!" She tried denying it, but there he was, mindlessly chanting that flame haired _bitch's_ name. Amy felt her blood boil over, flames igniting around her in the usual way they did when she was too angry for words. Sam and Tucker had to back up when this happened for the flames were tangible this time.

" _No one_ mind controls _my_ Sonic!" She summoned a hammer from thin air and charged into the crowd, battle cry and all.

"Is she nuts?!" Tucker yelled in protest of the hedgehog going, looking to Sam to at least try and stop her, but she did no such thing. No instead, Sam stared towards the crowd in shock, soon followed by Tuck once he tracked her gaze.

For stumbling towards the crowd behind Sonic was their best friend, one they hadn't seen in four months and thought for sure he was dead.

"Danny?!" the two said in unison.

Suddenly this whole awful situation felt as good as Christmas Day.


	10. A Revealing Reunion

Chapter 9- A Revealing Reunion

When it finally sunk in that Danny was there, walking right in front of them in some kind of dazed stupor, it took all of Tucker's strength to hold Sam back from dashing over to him and gripping him in a monstrous bear hug.

"Tucker, what are you doing, let go! He's _right there!_ "

"Do you want Ember to spot us?!" Tucker tried to reason with her to little actual effect; his words only seemed to provide her with more motivation to leave. "I know he's been missing all this time, but this isn't a good time to go and tackle him. Whatever he's doing, it wouldn't help for us to just barge in and interrupt without a plan."

"Does he _look_ like he's in any condition to go and fight her himself right now?!" Sam hissed, gesturing to said ghost boy currently licking the side of a building like it was covered in sugar. Tucker winced as soon after he started twirling like a ballerina and stumbling like a drunkard further and further from the concert site. "What the hell did that scientist bastard do to him?!"

"I don't know…" Tucker glared at no one in particular, growing angrier at the whole situation. When the three of them were together again, this Eggman guy was going down. Vlad might have given Danny to him, but it was Eggman who did all those things to him. And _enjoyed it,_ if the calls they had picked up on were any indication. Of course, Vlad was immediately next after him, but first things first.

Tucker sighed. They had to go and get him. They risked getting caught and they had no weapons to protect him or themselves, but that didn't matter in the heat of the moment.

When they were sure Amy was providing a distraction for them (Ember was currently siccing half of her army, including Sonic, on the younger hedgehog. The very angry preteen was faring much better than Shadow, much to the black hedgehog's visible annoyance.), the two made a run for it.

* * *

Tails flew as fast as he could, and if it was possible, the place was even more of a mess than the last time a ghost attacked. No casualties, if you didn't count everyone's eardrums to the deafeningly loud sound of poppy rock music from hell. Just one big, crowded, maddeningly obsessive mess…

Spotting Sonic was no problem. Amy had pulled him aside into an alley and he was quite literally getting the sense knocked back into him thanks to a few whacks from Amy's Piko Piko hammer. Tails laughed for a solid minute when he finally snapped out of it and was trying to convince her he was normal.

" _AMY, KNOCK IT OFF, I'M FINE NOW, I'M FINE!"_ Sonic cried as he was clutching his head, trying to protect it from more unnecessary whacks _._

"Can't be too careful, Blue Bear!" Amy gave him one more good hit, leaving Sonic dazed on the ground in an effort to recover. Tails flew over to meet her two friends, packing earplugs for Sonic so he wouldn't go under again.

"Sonic, maybe you should sit this one out," Tails simply stated, holding out the earplugs in front of his friend for him to grab. Sonic happily obliged, staggering home with plugs inserted so he could go and nurse his migraine.

"Good. Now we need to go and find Danny and drag him home so I can give him something to cancel out all those drugs."

" _Drugs?!_ " Tails winced at Amy's tone. He had neglected to tell her his findings, didn't he…?

"Just a little something left behind from Eggbreath," Tails assured, "C'mon, let's go." The fox grabbed Amy's arm and they took off to go and look for the kid. When they found him, they had to pause to take the whole scene in. They expected him to be off prancing around like a moron, maybe holding a conversation with a tree or two.

They didn't really expect Danny to be hugging the two humans Amy had just befriended like they would disappear on him any moment, tears freely flowing from his face with a big smile only Cream at her happiest could hope to rival.

* * *

 _ **Mere Minutes Earlier**_

Waking up in the middle of a crowded street full of nutjobs wasn't exactly where Danny thought he would end up. Wasn't the last place he was in the middle of Sonic's front yard?

How long had he been out anyways? Was Sonic and the others in trouble and is that why he was somehow in the city again? Were there any places that served any good Chinese around here?

None of those questions could be answered right away as Danny blinked and found himself in the embrace of two strangers, both getting snuggled in WAY too close into his space bubble. The raven haired girl with an admittedly really cool taste of clothing was bawling hysterically into his chest, while the African American nerdy looking boy shot a friendly smile his way when he managed to look up from his own hug. All Danny could do was stand rigid and stare at them in confusion.

"Wh… What?"

"Danny, we're SO glad you're alive…" the girl said after regaining some of her composure. She must have been bottling all of that in for awhile; didn't look like a crying type at first glance.

Danny's stare became even more dumbfounded as he processed what she said. These two knew who he was…?

"How do you know my name?" He asked in his usual soft tone, fear and distrust lightly bubbling up in him. Did _he_ send them? Were they just a couple of _his_ robots sent to trick him?

The girl's head immediately shot up at the question, the boy having a light look of dread began to surface.

"Dude, you're kidding right?" the boy asked Danny, a look that silently pleaded with him to truly be. "Don't you remember? It's us, Tucker and Sam. Your best friends since who knows _how_ long? 'The best ghost fighting partners you could ever ask for'?"

"Your girlfriend…?" the girl, Sam, said softly, eyes hopeful for a positive answer. These two were his… best friends?

As Danny was about to break the news to them, a flash. Little by little memories came back. Moments of the three goofing off as small children. Of them sitting together at high school lunch. Of them playing a practical joke on a large oafish looking blonde boy in a letterman jacket (he didn't remember his name, but he had a feeling they weren't exactly friends.). Of them fighting ghosts, more sightings of that white haired ghost (when he really analyzed it, it actually looked _a lot_ like himself for some reason), of taking Sam out on their first date…

Details still shaky for the most part, he could now remember who exactly Sam and Tucker were.

And how dearly he missed them deep inside.

He blinked a few times, and looked at the duo, trembling slightly as emotion threatened to overwhelm him on the spot. "S… Sam? Tuck…?"

A wave of relief swept across Sam and Tucker's faces as they beamed at him, only to be tackled and crushed in a hug themselves. It was Danny's turn to be absolutely hysterical; with the safe presence of his two friends, he felt comfortable enough to let go of four months worth of his own bottled up emotions. He could barely speak, sobs and coughs masking what he had to say. He knew it was childish, but what else could he do? Trapped in another dimension after being tortured to near death for months and finally seeing your dear friends again, the ones who had been with you through everything… it puts things into perspective.

Tucker let Sam take the reigns at calming him down, seeing how she was better at getting through to him. It was clear there was something very wrong with his memories, but it didn't matter then as Sam's coos and soothing words still had their usual effect. Within minutes, Danny only was sobbing with tears of joy at this revelation, snuggling into Sam and feeling an embrace he so desperately needed.

"That is so _adorable!_ I wish Sonic would express himself like that with _me_ …"

The moment and mood were effectively killed when they all noticed the loud mouthed Amy and sheepish Tails looking on not 15 feet away from them.

"Amy, don't be so rude. They were clearly in the middle of something," Tails scolded, looking at the three of them apologetically. Danny and Sam awkwardly broke away, not exactly comfortable with expressing such emotion to outsiders. Tails sighed when tensions seemed to settle and got down to business.

"Looks like I don't need that antidote anymore. Just in time too, we need your help, pal."

Raising an eyebrow, Danny looked into the center of the crowd and saw Ember playing another song. "Has she been there the whole time?"

Tucker balked at him. "What, did your Ghost Sense not turn on for you this time?" Then he remembered that Danny's memory might not be very good right now and felt like slapping himself; of course he wouldn't know about it.

"Ghost Sense?" Danny tilted his head at his friend when a wisp of cold blue air came from his mouth. The same one that happened when Skulker first began attacking the town.

"It happens whenever you feel a ghost nearby," Sam elaborated.

 _Another power, then… geez, how many do I have? And more importantly, why?_

More memories began to play in his mind. Flashes of a large scale concert takeover from what looked to be his school. Images of Ember using a spell on him, followed by a picture of a _seriously_ creepy looking shrine of Sam, and the jock from earlier _kissing his girlfriend_. A flash of her with a little pirate garbed ghost (that kid died a little young, didn't he? Come to think of it, Danny thought Ember looked to be really close to his age.)

Ember was definitely going to be a harder ghost to fight than Skulker, and all the more satisfying to be based on her various actions.

"What are we waiting for?" Danny said when he recovered, "Let's go get her!" He was about to bolt to go fight her when Sam stopped him.

"Unless you want to spend hours in front of a computer monitor just to get her brainwashing out of your head, I wouldn't go fighting her as a human."

"Well, how else am I supposed to fight her?" Danny groaned incredulously, looking at her like she was crazy. What was Sam getting at, anyways?

Tails turned wide eyed. Should he tell him what he discovered, about the boy being only partly human? How would he react? Would he even believe him? He didn't want to have to waste more time trying to convince him of the truth.

Danny's two friends beat him to it, and what happened next was a phenomena he shan't ever forget.

* * *

Sam and Tucker looked at each other. Looks like the Fentons weren't the only ones they would have to reveal Danny's secret to. They needed him to go ghost right away in order to bring things with Ember out of her control, regardless of who saw. Luckily the only ones paying any attention to the group were Tails and Amy, and they looked trustworthy enough. Privately they hoped that they wouldn't regret showing this off to two strangers they knew nothing about and Sam turned to address Danny.

"Okay, an easy way of putting this…" Sam thought exasperatedly outloud. With a sigh she settled on her answer and continued. "Danny, I need you to concentrate really hard and find a cold feeling inside of you."

"What are you-"

"Just trust me on this. Tuck and I'll explain everything later…" she glaced at the two anthros, knowing this counted towards them as well.

"Alright," Danny muttered softly, closing his eyes and pinching his brows in concentration.

After a full two minutes went by, it seemed like they were getting nowhere with this, until, finally, a white ring began to form down the center of his body. Tucker silently cheered while Sam watched with self pride, proud she was able to help him with this.

"What's happening…?" Amy asked warily, and Tucker almost immediately shushed her so Danny wouldn't lose focus. All became silent as the rings split and traveled both up and down his body. Tattered white and red shirt became replaced with well kept black and silver jumpsuit, a 'DP' symbol placed firmly in the center. Jet black hair became snowy white, an ethereal aura, the aura of spirits, surrounded him, the area around them became chilly. When the transformation completed, Danny opened his eyes, now a glowing, ectoplasmic green instead of icy blue.

"Why does everything feel real light and cold all of the sudden?" Danny asked once settled into it all, unaware of his appearance.

No answer came for him; Sam and Tucker nodded in approval while Tails and Amy's jaws dropped; when Tails learned Danny was partly a ghost, he didn't think by such an extreme amount!

For standing in front of them was the same white-haired, green-eyed ghost that had been described to them only days ago.


	11. A Less Than Friendly Musical Romp

Chapter 10- A Less Than Friendly Musical Romp

For the longest time, no one said anything: Tails and Amy because they were in a severe amount of shock and awe; Sam and Tucker because they were soaking in their friend's long missed transformation; Danny because he was internally trying to figure out how he was so cold and wasn't dead… well… _technically_ he was at the moment, not that he knew this.

Danny was the first one to break the silence, noticing at once all of the stares sent his way once he was used to his own chill. "Is there something on my face, or did I suddenly become the most attractive guy on the planet…?"

Tails, mouth still agape like a fish, grabbed a hold of Danny's arm (he was still trying to figure out how it was currently slightly translucent and _glowing like a lightbulb)_ dragged him over to a mirror so he could get a good look at himself. Soon, Danny's mouth had opened in a fish-like position as well.

" _Where the hell did this stupid looking jumpsuit come from, who took a bunch of dye to my hair when I wasn't looking, why am I wearing contacts, and_ HOW THE HELL AM I FLOATING OFF THE GROUND?!" Danny's mind screamed at him. Okay, the hovering could be chocked up to his flight powers, he recalled from his list of rediscovered abilities, but he couldn't even get two inches off the ground before having to stop last time and all of the sudden he was a clean 5 feet in the air without having to even think about it.

Words instead came out as hopeless stammering. "Bu-But I… and that… and wha…? _What the hell is going on?!_ "

"Like I said," Sam started as she noticed the screams got the attention of a very surprised looking Ember, "I'll explain later."

"Decided to finally show up, dipstick?!"

Their heads all shot further up the street, with Ember's shock turned to a fantastic sneer. It was about time _he_ showed his ugly mug to try and stop her.

"And I thought you were off hiding in a hole somewhere," Ember said nastily as she played a rift of her guitar, sending a sonic blast right in Danny's path. Instinctually, Danny turned intangible and phased right through the attack.

"Really, cause I thought you disappeared all that time cause you were learning how to not be a mind controlling hack," Danny shot back. The last time in his very poor memory he had seen the ghost rocker, he had sent her packing and just like that, she was gone for months. No evil plans, no popping in just to mess with him, no screwing around in a music store somewhere.

"Who're you calling a _hack_?!" Enraged, Ember came barreling towards the ghost boy herself, at a frighteningly high speed, guitar lifted in the air to swing down on him like a sword.

"Danny, look out!" Tails called as he pushed the slightly too slow boy out of the way, taking the hit for him and sending him careening into a telephone pole.

"Tails!" Amy and Danny cried. Amy went to help him while the Amity Trio went to go and take care of Ember, fueled by the desire to avenge their fox friend. Sam and Tucker didn't know Tails, but he pushed Danny out of the way, and really unless that person wronged them before, any friend of Danny's was a friend of theirs.

"Tucker, PLEASE tell me that the thermos didn't get sucked out of your backpack too." Sam said desperately as Danny dashed off to go fight the rocker. Tucker smirked and brought out the thermos stowed away tightly in his pack, the only thing that didn't get jettisoned out by the portal.

"It'll take more than a glorified vacuum to penetrate _my_ awesome backpack!" Tucker told Sam with a smug smile on his face. Sam only reacted with a deadpan look that snapped Tucker into silence.

Meanwhile, the battle between Ember and Danny began to heat up. Danny was firing insults left and right, trying to throw Ember off as the swings of her guitar became more wild from rage

"Maybe you should get a career in elevator music for how much your songs put me to sleep!"

"Shut UP, Phantom!"

"Met up with your boyfriend the other day! Happy to say he's still a prime example of the term 'low standards'!" Danny quickly found that particular taunt a favorite among the various ones he spewed, recalling the disgust when _that_ particular memory popped up in the mix. Tucker rolled on the floor with laughter. Ember tried blasting him with a strum of her guitar for that, but Danny was too fast, dodging easily now that her attacks began to telegraph themselves.

Blast after blast was sent through her guitar, Danny dodging left and right. Siccing her army on him only led to Danny becoming intangible, yawning while her zombie army's attacks passed harmlessly through him.

"Come here so I can wipe that smile off your face!" Ember practically screeched, tempers flaring.

"Nah, I think I'm good here," Danny stated, crossing his arms and flicking his head towards a far off battle cry. "Plus I kind of wanna stay out of the way of the angry hedgehog..." He said, slightly trembling from the unnatural scream and eyes turning wide as saucers.

"Angry he-" Ember didn't have time to react as Amy came bursting onto the scene, body surrounded in burning, tangible rage-flames, hammer imbued with one of Tails' ectoplasm cartridges so it could affect ghosts, and a clear cut target on Ember's head. Another whack came for each scorn-lace thing Amy spat at the ghost rocker. The Amity trio and the now conscious Tails winced at every impact and pained cry from Ember. Tails looked away from what happened next, knowing Ember's fate was practically sealed.

"THAT'S FOR HYPNOTIZING MY SONIKKU!" A whack sent Ember careening towards a wall, immediately followed by a whack sending the ghost high into the air. "THAT'S FOR HURTING TAILS!" A spin attack from Amy sent Ember into the wall for real this time, only to have her bounce off like a pinball. "THAT'S FOR SIMPLY EXISTING!"

"CHAOS CONTROL!" Time slowed in an instant, and when it started up again, Ember found herself rocketing straight towards a freed and exponentially pissed off Shadow, perched onto the very pole he had been trapped on.

"And this is for tying me to a damn light pole." Chaos Spears surrounded the black hedgehog, glowing more fierce than they had been in a long time. Shadow shot Ember a wicked glare before launching his attack. "CHAOS SPEAR!" In the blink of an eye, a large explosion was set off the moment they hit their mark, sending Ember shooting into the ground. She recovered enough to turn intangible before she hit the ground, but she still came back up worse for wear.

" _So my weapons can't hurt these bastards, but it looks like my Chaos powers can,"_ Shadow thought proudly, glad to not have to sit on the sidelines with these monsters any longer.

"You think _that_ lame attack is gonna keep me down, gramps…?" Ember said, "I've still got... tons of people ready to chant my name to give me strength…"

"Not anymore." All of the group' heads shot to Tucker, who had made his way to the makeshift stage. Sam shot an evil glare at Ember and covered her ears and Danny, not remembering what exactly happened at the end of their first encounter with the rocker, mimicked Sam and covered his ears as well. The Mobians, however, had no means of preparing for the assault on their ears to come.

Tucker took a deep breath and began singing 'Remember' with a 'singing' voice reminiscent of a dying cat. The noise shattered every window and wilted every flower in the vicinity. The teenage Mobians were freed only to have to cover their ears to protect their sensitive hearing. Tails could have swore the sound made him more deaf and somehow temporarily blinded him with agony, Amy and Shadow not much better. Sonic, who was about a mile away at this point, had to cover his ears and drop the aspirin he was about to take just to save his own hearing. At least three elderly people nearly went into cardiac arrest two towns away. The point is it was bad, but it did the job alright.

Ember had curled into a ball in a library's wall. the assault too much for her. Tucker had made sure to mix his live screeching with a recording on his PDA of the last time he had to do this, just in case the situation arose. Feeling proud of himself, Tucker took out the Thermos stowed away in his backpack and wasted no time sucking Ember into it.

"Ugh… my head feels like it got bashed with Amy's stupid hammer…" Knuckles said, disoriented.

"Would you like to experience the real thing…?" Amy growled, taking her trusty hammer out of the blue. Knuckles quickly snapped his lips shut.

"Remind me not to get on their bad side…" Danny whispered to Sam, body still frozen and eyes still wide in shock. Sam snickered and slapped him on the back to unfreeze him.

* * *

A minute later, Sonic arrived on the scene, headache still pulsing through his body but curious as to what the heck happened. It was quite a sight.

Not a trace of a still intact window was present. Trees were fallen and without leaves. Cars and building remains were strewn everywhere and holes in walls were everywhere. The white haired ghost decided to make an appearance now; another ghost to have to defeat so soon?! A kid more nerdy looking than Tails and a kid more Gothic looking than the inside of Cryptic Castle were in the group with his friends. The nerdy looking kid had a soup can when it clearly wasn't lunch time. What did this all mean?!

"What the hell is going on?!" Sonic yelled, then immediately regretted as he clutched his aching head.

"Yeah, I think it's time for that explanation you promised, Sam," the white haired ghost said, voice, Sonic noted, sounding strangely like Danny's, only all echoey.

" _Huh. Small world, I guess,"_ Sonic told himself.

"Ooh, ooh, I got just the thing to explain everything! I made you a theme song, dude!" the nerdy kid said to the white haired ghost while he clicked through… was that a PDA? What was this, the mid-2000's? Sonic's friends were all dumbfounded by the little trinket. The stupefying got even more pronounced when they actually heard the song he made (hot damn though, that kid could rap)… and it only got worse from there…

* * *

"S… So, I got into a lab accident… that blended my DNA with ectoplasm and made me half ghost, pumped me full of enough electricity and radiation to kill at least a city block, and I somehow _DIDN'T DIE….?!"_

All of the stories of his feats, enemies, and _especially_ his origin threw Danny and the others for a loop. Getting sent to ghost prison just because his _dad_ lost an anniversary present?! Nearly killing himself trying to stop an evil ghost king?! The fact the guy who started all of this tried to _clone him_ because he became so fixated on making him his son?! (Although hearing how cool the remaining clone actually turned out made him feel a bit better about that creepy little fact.) The fact he had to worry about his own parents trying to destroy him?! His dimension was some kind of twisted death trap with a vendetta against ghost teens.

There was so much for Danny to absorb that it made his head spin. Yes, the tales helped clear a bit of the clouds in his memory; he remembered he could duplicate himself (trying to remember how to do duplication would be a major bitch, he surmised), had the ability to create a 'Ghostly Wail' (whatever that was) and had ice powers with a little bit of pushing, but the rest of it wasn't clicking with him. He figured for the rest, he'd have to actually see the things for himself, and to do that, he'd have to go home, which wasn't possible at the moment.

"Can I just say somethin'?" Sonic said, breaking the silence. "I don't know how the hell you could have gone through all that and survive, Danny, but it all just makes you more badass in my book!" It all apparently clicked easier with Sonic, seeing how he himself defeated a water demon creature thing, a millions of years old Earth destroying death god, and the embodiment of the disruption of time itself. He finally found someone close to his level of awesome, and it was Sonic's turn to start gushing. Knuckles and Shadow nodded in approval as well and Tails looked like he was going to faint through the whole tale.

When things began to cool down and it was clear Danny still was having trouble absorbing everything, Sonic decided to call it a night.

"Where the heck are we supposed to stay?" Tucker asked as everyone began to go their separate ways. Sonic was about to suggest the two teens stay with him too, but Amy beat him to the punch and he knew all too well there was no fighting with her.

"We'll come see you everyday, Danny," Sam promised before taking off with Tucker and the once again cheerful Amy, who was gushing over how cute she was going to make their rooms.

Sam threw up a little in her mouth with each mention of it.


	12. Starry Nights

_**This chapter is all bonding and fluff, a bit on the shorter side, and doesn't just contain scenes with Sonic and Danny. Just thought I'd letcha know.**_

Chapter 11- Starry Nights

Neither boys said anything for awhile on the way up the hill, both lost in their own trains of thought. Sonic tried to think of something he could do to ease a bit of the tension; it was too late in the evening to start painting after all. Danny, still in ghost form without knowledge on how to turn back, continued to slowly but surely process all of the information he was given. He had finally acknowledged that he was some kind of superhero, and a powerful one at that, but how could he have made so many enemies, most of them ghostly? It disheartened him to know that most of those affiliated with his other half were evil. Did it mean that his ghost half was inherently evil itself and that the only reason it wasn't was because of some kind of willpower? If it was, then it was only a matter of time before it went on a rampage like the other ghosts; his will was much weaker ever since being tortured.

He didn't want to appear more pathetic, so he didn't show anyone, but it was true. He hadn't really slept (real sleep and not unconsciousness) since the first night he arrived at Sonic's house, too many horrors on his mind to allow reprieve. If he ever does nod off, he's plagued by images of Dr. Eggman sneering over him as he- he shook his head, not wanting to go back to that dark place in his mind. He realized not sleeping wasn't good for him, but there wasn't anything else to do without further burdening Sonic. The hedgehog had already done so much and he couldn't ask more of him by having him babysit the half-ghost overnight.

" _Maybe Tails has something that could fend off nightmares. I'll ask him in the morning,"_ Danny thought, already anticipating another sleepless night in the meantime. It was then he noticed they weren't on the path home, but rather going further up the hill Sonic's house was placed on.

"Sonic, where are we going?" Danny asked.

"I wanna show you something," Sonic simply answered, not turning his head back to face the younger teen.

The trip up the hill didn't take long, mostly because Sonic started tugging Danny along when the hedgehog felt he was floating too slowly. What lay on top took Danny's breath (or lack thereof due to his current ghostly form) away. Lying on top of the hill was a cliff, able to gaze over the city as well as the ocean about 30 miles away, at most. The setting sun and gently rising moon seemed to make the ocean sparkle with their overall warm light. The air was brisk and cool, perfect to wind down from the stressful day. In the distance, Danny could see a floating island close to the sky, an oddity, but only adding to the beauty.

"Awesome view, right?" Sonic said as he gazed at the sunset, grabbing Danny's attention. The boy nodded, at a loss for words. "I come up here when I wanna wind down and relax. You looked like you needed it, so why not show this place off?"

"It's amazing up here…" Danny said once he found his voice, eyes sparkling as the sun set further and the moon became higher.

"Knew you'd like it. Just wait until it gets dark and the stars come out. THAT'S when it gets really nice." Sonic grinned as his words made Danny smile widely in anticipation. It felt nice making the kid smile when he needed it; he didn't see it often.

The two sat in content silence as the last of the sun's rays disappeared. Soon after, the stars began coming into view. With memories of his astronaut aspirations came memories of constellations, which Danny was pleasantly surprised Sonic's universe shared a lot with his own. Sonic listened to Danny jabber on about what he saw, reminiscent of Tails chatting about a latest invention. When he had his fill of chatting about the stars, Danny sat in silence, simply admiring the view with Sonic joining him.

After a few seconds, Danny decided to break the silence. "So, uh… what's that island over there?"

"Oh, that? That's Angel Island, where Knuckles lives."

"Knuckles _lives_ there?! How does he get to the mainland and back?"

"Teleportation orbs," Sonic answered, causing Danny to blink for a few seconds at its absurdity… until he remembered his own situation. Teleportation didn't seem so absurd when your own existence defied the laws of nature. Danny was starting to not like his Phantom form much.

"Hey, Sonic? How do you think I can turn back to human?"

"Huh… I was wondering that too." Sonic put a hand to the bottom of his muzzle in thought, trying to figure out how to help. Just then, a flash of light appeared at Danny's torso and split up and down the middle, returning him to human form. "Well, there you go!" Sonic chuckled at the baffled look on Danny's face.

"That's gonna be hard to get used to," Danny mumbled, scratching the back of his head. He didn't even know how he had triggered it; he just thought very hard and right when he gave up for a break it happened.

Without anything else to say to each other, the two boys watched the stars for a few more hours. It only ceased when Sonic realized Danny had fallen asleep, curled up in the grass next to the hedgehog. Shrugging, Sonic picked up the younger teen and carried him all the way back down the hill, falling asleep in his own bed after placing Danny on his couch. Decorating the guest room would be a top priority the next day, but for now it was time for some long awaited shut-eye.

Despite his worries, Danny had no significant nightmares plague him that night.

* * *

"Okay, guys, so I've only got one guest room, and there's no way I'm letting a boy and a girl sleep in the same room on my watch, so you'll have to fight to the death for it, kay?"

Sam and Tucker froze as they walked through their host's front door, horrified at what Amy had spouted out of her mouth in such a chipper tone. The pink hedgehog had already gotten herself a glass of water and was heading off to prepare for bed before they found their voice.

"...Did you just say fight to the d-"

"Extra hammers are in my closet! And try to only knock each other out! I don't like cleaning stains off my carpet!" Amy said, cutting Tucker off and leaving the two shocked humans alone in the small living room.

"Well…" Tucker started, "isn't _she_ something special?"

"Something _special?_ More like something _crazy._ I'm not gonna fight you for the extra bedroom." Sam said under her breath at the audacity of the girl.

"Because you wouldn't want to risk compromising our powerful friendship over such a silly reason and would like to do your good pal Tuck a favor?" Tucker said hopefully, already imagining how much better it would be to sleep on a comfy bed instead of a hard, spring filled couch.

"No. Because I don't want to put you in the hospital in the process of getting it," Sam answered, a smug smile clear on her face. Tucker's eager smile was replaced with a look of disbelief.

"You're joking right? Obviously, I'D get the room if we started fighting. You know how big my guns got from all that ghost fighting?" Tucker lifted the right sleeve of his shirt and flexed his arm to reveal a bulge of muscle about as big as a decently sized cherry. Sam snickered under her breath at the sight.

"Tucker, _Mikey's_ more filled out than you and the A-Listers purposely didn't let him eat lunch so he'd stay scrawny."

"And you think you're tougher than me?"

"I don't think. I know."

The two teens glared at each other until they both made beelines for Amy's closet, looking for their weapon of choice for battle. Toy hammers of all shapes and sizes spilled from the inside. Sam grabbed a thinner but more aerodynamic model, Tucker a large but heavy model. They wouldn't do seriously hurt each other, but they could still cause quite a lot of damage. With evil smirks and battle cries, the fight had commenced.

The battle raged on for a good half hour before Tucker fell to the ground, nearly fainting from exhaustion.

"Ha!" Sam cried out in victory, "I told you I was stronger than you!" With a confident laugh, she made her way to her prize: the guest bedroom. Upon entering the doorway, however, Sam was horrified. The room ended up being full of more nauseating pink than anywhere else in the entire house, as far as she knew. Pink paint, pink flowers, pink furniture, pink bedding, pink carpet… everything was a different shade of pink. Sam didn't have enough black spray paint to make it work either; the sheer amount was too much to cover.

"On second thought, Tucker, the room's all yours!" Sam called, getting the nearly despondent Tucker onto the bed before plopping onto the surprisingly comfortable couch and turning in for the night.

"Lucky me…" Tucker groaned semi-triumphantly, happy that Sam had seen the error of her ways and allowed him to occupy the room… even if the pink wanted to make even him throw up a little. Or maybe that was his injured stomach.

* * *

Once Tails arrived at his house, Thermos containing Ember in tow, he immediately got down to business with his ghost tech side project. Using a modified extraction device, he was able to take a healthy sample of Ember's ectoplasm and convert it into fuel charges. With the fully functional Thermos, he was able to reverse engineer it, somehow keeping Ember safely inside, and create plans for duplicate containment devices. He was even able to come up with a few designs for Ecto Guns.

But what Tails didn't have was a reference to his work. In order to get these things working their best, he needed an expert to oversee the creations. And he knew just who to contact planning to kill two birds with one stone.

Digging out the number he had obtained earlier that day, he sat in front of his communicator and contacted the best (and only) references he knew: the Fenton family.

The screen filled with static before being replaced with an image of a young girl, about 16 or 17 years of age from the looks of it, eyes red with tears. Dark circles lined the bottom rims of her eyes as she gazed up in sadness and curiosity to Tails. It was someone Tails thought he had never seen before until he thought back to the picture on the front page; she looked like the girl Danny playfully wrapped his arms around, his sister, he presumed. And from her physical state, it looked like she was in a bad way.

"Hello?" she said, voice questioning but hiding leftover sorrow, "who is this?"

Tails gulped, nervous to have an opportunity to talk to Danny's family, "U-uh… hello, my name is Miles Prower. I was wondering if I could talk to Mr. and Mrs. Fenton? I would like to ask them for assista-"

"What do you want with Mom and Dad?" Danny's sister asked, eyes narrowing in suspicion. The look made Tails uncomfortable, like she was well versed in giving others that look when she shouldn't have to. And she looked so happy in the photo.

He would have to tell them about Danny sooner than later. The weapons would have to wait; bringing a family together was more important.

Tails sighed. "I-I… please don't freak out, but... I found your brother." Danny's sister's eyes widened as she received the news, trying to process it. She then reached a state of mild hysteria.

"Prove it!" she yelled, a fierce glow in her eyes. It didn't surprise the kit; many people had probably told her this and failed to actually provide proof. Lucky for him, he did.

Telling Danny he had meant it as a research photo, he snapped a picture of the halfa in his ghost form. It would serve a different purpose that moment. Lifting his phone to the screen, Tails displayed the picture, making the girl sober immediately.

"Danny…" she softly said, hand going over her mouth in disbelief. "Wh… wher… h-how did you-?"

"I'll promise I'll explain everything, just please call your parents over," Tails said pleasantly. The girl nodded without another word and ran up the stairs, calling for Jack and Maddie. A few minutes later, the trio came down, all of them in similar states of sorrow with Maddie probably the worst off of them all.

Jack cleared his throat and spoke first. "You… Jazz said you had our son?" The soft-spoken nature of Jack's voice stunned Tails. He took Jack for more of a louder individual.

"Can we see him?!" Maddie cried, a sharp contrast to Jack's calmer demeanor, tears threatening to fall, "Please, let me see my baby boy!" she begged. The sight of the heartbroken family made Tails feel empathy for them.

"I will tomorrow. He's staying with my friend and I don't want to deprive him of his rest," Tails explained.

"Is he alright?" Jack asked, concern laced in his tone.

"He's fine, it's just… I can tell you more when he's here. For right now, I need your help."

"Our help?" Danny's sister, now known to Tails as Jazz, said, the family waiting for Tails to elaborate.

"Yeah. You guys might be the only way to help aid in his protection and get him home faster. I live in another dimension, you see, too far away from your range to send Danny back. That and…" Tails sighed before finishing, knowing they wouldn't like his next thoughts.

"...I think he's severely lost his memory because of an invention someone presumably stole from you."

To say the family fell into crestfallen looks faster that one could blink at the end of Tails' sentence is the understatement of the month.


	13. Home Improvement Hijinx

Chapter 12- Home Improvement Hijinxs

Vlad ran a hand along his face in an act of self control as he listened to Eggman's disappointing tale full of failure. The more the tale went on, the more he was ready to feed the man to a ghost dragon.

"...And it wasn't even the kid who did much of anything to her this time. It was that meddlesome pink hedgehog, Amy Rose! I swear, she's more irritating than that horrid Sonic!" Eggman wasn't in a much better mood, going into a tangent about needed more hedgehog-proof machinery and needing to come up with plans for mass hedgehog genocide. "I'm only in my late thirties and I'm already going bald! I USED TO HAVE HAIR, VLAD! Sonic stressed me out so much, I began losing my hair until all I had left was my glorious moustache…" Eggman concluded, rubbing his shiny, hairless head while stroking his 'stache in self-admiration, "...wait a minute not even my moustache is safe because a rabbit ripped half of it off one ti-"

"Doctor, I don't want to hear about your personal preferences with animals or the presence and management of your hair. I want RESULTS!" Vlad slammed his hand onto Eggman's desk, bringing Eggman back into attention. "Now call back that blasted Ember so we can come up with a new strategy!"

"I can't! Before my feed went out, they sucked her into some kind of contraption. Looked just like yours. What did you call it, the Fenton Thermos?"

Vlad officially boiled over upon hearing that. "What?!" This time, when he hit the desk, he took a sizable chunk of it off with him. Eggman jumped out of fear, gulping when Vlad didn't say anything for awhile after.

After a long pause, Vlad finally spoke again. "I'm going back into my dimension to find you a suitable partner. Obviously, the plans fail if you can't see eye to eye with them." Without another word, Vlad created another portal, disappearing back into Amity Park.

"That could have gone worse," Cubot said once he was sure the man was gone.

"I agree. He's quite… temperamental," Orbot added

Eggman snorted at his two slave-bots. "You're telling me. I thought he was going to rip my head off of my shoulders this time! And did you see his eyes? I could have sworn they were glowing red."

"A trick of the light, perhaps," Orbot suggested, going off with Cubot and leaving the doctor alone to retrieve his dinner.

Eggman pouted doubtedly, walking back over to his computer console to look at his files. " _Trick of the light_ , indeed. No... Something isn't right with that man. And I'm going to find out what."

* * *

Sonic sat back in his chair in the dining room, finished with his breakfast but not wanting to get up just yet. He was surprised to find a plate of food waiting for him when he woke up, more surprised that Danny went out of his way to cook it himself.

Yes, the eggs were somehow both burned and wet at the same time, the bacon was fried in marmalade instead of just on its own, the toast looked like it took one of Danny's ecto blasts to the face and the younger teen obviously mistook salt for sugar when it came to the pancakes, but Sonic couldn't really complain. Or talk for that matter; his own lack of cooking skill led the hedgehog to constantly go out to restaurants or order takeout with his reward money he got from stopping bad guys.

Previously mentioned nightmare chef (sadly from a family of nightmare chefs unbeknownst to Sonic) was inside of the theater playing Sonic Shuffle by himself. Sonic cracked a smile every time he heard Danny burst into laughter over how ridiculous the game turned out to be. Better than running himself ragged in the gym for days on end or moping around from paranoia. Still, they had other things to do. It was finally time to set up Danny's room.

Sonic quickly put his dishes in the damn-near untouched dishwasher and ran straight to the theater.

"C'mon, pause dude, we can play on my Dreamcast later!" Sonic called, making Danny jump. Danny paused and turned his head back to look at Sonic.

"What's up?" the ghost boy asked warily, already anticipating the worst. Sonic took note of the cautious behavior and sought to reassure him.

"Nothin's goin on again, D. I just wanna get started on getting the guest room hooked up like we were gonna do yesterday. Besides, if there was another ghost already, you'd probably sense it, right?" Sonic explained, both hands in front of his chest in an open palm, defensive manner. Danny visibly relaxed and nodded. "You worry too much, pal," Sonic added with a chuckle. The hedgehog patted the halfa's back and led him out of the room to get started.

* * *

"Sonic, are you sure we can't call a professional to paint the room?" Danny said, looking skeptical when Sonic handed him a paint brush and told him to get busy.

"Where's the fun in that?!" Sonic lifted himself from his bending position and began using a comically large roller to start painting the room purple. "Getting someone else to paint for you is for boring people! You don't wanna be a boring person, do ya?!"

"Getting someone who knows what they're doing to do that thing for you is for _boring_ people? And where in your butt did you pull that logic out of?" Danny retorted, smiling despite himself over how goofy the hedgehog could be sometimes.

Sonic smirked, seeing Danny smile and wanting to keep it going. "I'll have you know that my butt is even smarter than Tails!"

"I'm telling him you said that."

"Oh no, don't!" Sonic dramatically pretended to look faint and fell softly onto the tarp, holding back his own cackles. "Our friendship shall be ruined!"

"Get up, dork." Danny shook his head and went over to help Sonic up, Sonic responding by pulling him down with him and getting them both covered in stray paint while trying to get up.

"Aw, come on, this is a white shirt!" Danny whined, "...And my only shirt!"

"The purple splattered on it gives it more color. That tiny amount of red doesn't cut it, dude." In response after a short beat, Danny took a glob of paint from the bucket and splattered it onto Sonic. When the hedgehog recovered from being stunned, Danny smiled smugly, talking back in a mocking tone in as much of a Sonic-like voice he could muster.

" _The purple splattered on it gives your fur more color than just blue…_ "

"That wasn't cool!" Sonic retaliated with his own glob going flying. Danny instinctively went intangible, avoiding the attack and causing the purple paint that remained on his person to fall off of him cleanly.

 _Well THAT'S convenient,_ Danny thought as he looked down at his now clean shirt.

"Oh HO HO, no…" Sonic said while getting up. And evil smile began filling out his face from end to end. "You aren't getting out of getting dirty while I look like a moldy grape." With a battle cry Sonic grabbed a bucket of purple and started throwing paint all over like a madman in all directions. Still quite inexperienced with his powers outside of battle, Danny's eyes widened as his intangibility flickered off and he splattered onto the wall in a massive paint-splosion. Sonic winced as he heard a yelp from the half-ghost. "Uh… Danny, you alright?"

Danny slowly got up from his sprawled position and grabbed the nearest paint bucket, full of blue paint. "THIS MEANS WAR!"

It quickly became Sonic's turn to widen his eyes as a wave of paint threw him onto the floor. After he got up, the two engaged in paint-to-paint combat until they had no ammunition from the big cans left. By the time they were finished, the room actually looked a lot like the night sky image they were going for. Sonic looked like a watercolor painting while Danny didn't have a single drop on him.

"I hope you realise that's _TOTALLY_ not fair." Sonic said with a playful smirk, only mildly upset at getting dirty.

"Don't try to play it off like you didn't try and dodge with your superspeed. You were harder to hit than a gnat."

"And you being able to instantly clean yourself is fair game? It's gonna take me hours to get this all out." This was the one part Sonic wasn't entirely happy about, and was about to declare the paint fight an overall bad idea when Danny had an idea.

"...Maybe I could turn _you_ intangible too. I don't think I've tried other things besides me," Danny stated as he put a finger on his chin in consideration. "Plus if it works I could practice so that I can use it in the field."

"Sounds like a plan!" Sonic held out an arm and waited for Danny to attempt the power on him. Danny gently grabbed Sonic's wrist and concentrated, just like he did when he used it on himself, this time directing it somewhere else.

Sonic felt a shiver down his spine as his body became transparent, the paint on his body falling off as if nothing was there to hold it. He smiled and gave his friend a thumbs up before noticing Danny was suddenly growing taller and had a panicked look on his face.

"What's the matter?" The hedgehog tilted his head, not knowing what was wrong. Danny need only point down and bite his lip before Sonic looked for himself and saw his body sinking through the floor. "AH! Get me outta the floor! I kinda NEED those feet!"

Without wasting time, Danny yanked Sonic away from the ground and turned him back to normal. Both of them breathed a sigh of relief as Sonic's body became solid again, not at risk of falling through the floor anymore. A quick set of memories flashed through Danny's mind, replaying all of the times he himself had sunk through the floor before mastering his intangibility. With the danger gone, he smiled at the familiarity.

"That…" Sonic started as he panted and recovered from panicking, "...wasn't fun."

 _I dunno, it was kinda funny watching someone else fall through the floor for a change,_ Danny thought as he smirked and scratched the back of his neck before taking a look at the room in the aftermath of the paint war. The paint had mixed together on the walls and created a perfect image of the night sky emerging from the sunset.

"Sonic, look at the walls!" The boy raised Sonic's downed head and the two of them spent a good long while admiring their work. It was the first time Sonic was willing to watch paint dry, if only to keep looking at the work they accomplished a little longer. As soon as the paint was dry enough, the two spent another half hour adding little white twinkles and stars to the walls before moving in the furniture. The room was complete by late afternoon, and the two couldn't be prouder of how it turned out.

As the day finally drew to a close, the bed was properly broke in… by Sonic and Danny passing out right on top of it on the spot.


	14. The Power of Technology

Chapter 13- The Power of Technology

While the hedgehog and halfa slept down below, up inside of Dr. Eggman's space station, all had fallen into a tense atmosphere. Orbot and Cubot had long since given up on trying to entertain the doctor as he worked hard to decrypt any files Vlad had given him that were hidden away, and resorted to begging him to attend to his other duties.

"C'mon, boss, you've been at it all night! Plus you forgot to give out the oil rations and we're all hungry!" Cubot whined, tugging at his master's red jacket to no avail.

"You have arms that aren't broken, you lazy hunk of scrap! Feed yourselves if you're so low on oil; I'm busy!" Eggman growled as he ripped his jacket away from the robot. Cubot looked down dejectedly and trudged off to the kitchen to do just that.

"You didn't have to be so harsh, boss. Low oil drives a robot mad, after all," Orbot meekly said. He detected Eggman's foul mood and stay as far away as he could.

"Well, if he hadn't interrupted me and made me lose my place in these documents, I wouldn't have been so nasty!" Eggman snapped, reloading the file and starting his readings from the top. "Now why don't you make yourself useful and make sure Cubot doesn't break anything." Orbot sighed and nodded before leaving the room in a hurry, to try and not evoke anymore of Eggman's wrath.

"AND MAKE ME A HERO SANDWICH!" Eggman called after through the doorway, getting a small voice of acknowledgement before the room finally became silent. "They should really consider renaming the ' _hero_ ' sandwich. Such a discriminatory name; I know PLENTY of evil doers such as myself who like them," the scientist muttered as he closed the door and plopped into his chair with a groan. Going through the documents was a major pain. Everything was surprisingly well hidden and took a long while to unlock, giving him a major migraine in the process. He rubbed his temples and drank the 'hot' tea he made that had long since grown cold.

Not a single lead on anything off with Vlad either. It made Eggman think he was ultimately wasting his time, not made any easier by his robots pestering him at all hours.

 _Perhaps it IS time to call it a day,_ Eggman thought as he placed his mug down and was about to turn off his monitors. An incoming call from Vlad stopped him in his tracks. He put away all of his files and answered the call quickly, revealing an image of Vlad that looked every bit as weary as himself.

"Ah, I take it you were hard at work as well, Doctor?" Vlad asked with a raised eyebrow, the bags under his own eyes becoming temporarily more pronounced.

"Why of course. As long as I was waiting, I really had nothing better to do. Have you found a new ghost to provide me with aid in capturing that annoying hedgehog?" Eggman asked in a casual tone, trying to hide the fact the man still made him very nervous.

"As a matter of fact, I have. It took a lot of convincing on my part, but I believe I've found you the perfect partner. Technus, come and introduce yourself!" Vlad called off from the side of the screen. Suddenly, Eggman's computer came to life with a sharp green glow before the image of a white haired, glasses wearing ghost overtook his screen.

"So you're the human Vlad kept yammering on about? You don't look all that impress-" Technus started, slightly unsure of his new ally until he got a good look around at all of the different and powerful computers throughout the room. The ghost whistled approvingly, impressed the doctor had such good taste. "You build all of these yourself?" he asked Eggman afterwards.

"Every single last one of them, yes," Eggman said, smiling at the fact Vlad finally got him a decent partner this time. No wasting time yapping about useless hunting or blasting incessant music for hours on end; no, this one seemed to have an interest in technology, perfect for a genius such as himself. It would be nice having someone on his level, who was currently going on about how high tech his entire set up was, how no one in his own world could ever dream of imitating him.

He wasn't sure if Technus was buttering him up or if it was genuine, but he was happy either way and didn't question it further.

"I'll leave you both to it. DO NOT fail me this time, Ivo." With that, Vlad hung up, and Technus phased into the room from Eggman's computer. The doctor wasn't sure how he crossed dimensions simply through this method, but he wasn't going to bother asking; ghosts were strange creatures.

"Gotta say, I'm LOVIN' the glasses that you're wearing. They're uh... " the ghost quickly took out a small book and skimmed through it before continuing, "'totally rad, yo!"

Okay, so annoying slang was part of the package, it seemed, but Eggman still wasn't complaining. He dealt with it from Sonic for so long that he was immune to its irritating powers.

"Ah, thank you… I guess. After we deal with Sonic and Danny, I'll take you out to get a pair. First, why don't you show me what you can do and we'll formulate a plan," Eggman began, and was about to lead Technus out when Orbot came back with his hero sandwich.

"Dinner is served, boss!" the robot cheerfully cried.

"Do you mind if I demonstrate using that?"

"You go right ahead," Eggman said all too quickly, and he watched as Technus flew into Orbot's body. The robot dropped the sandwich he was holding, and twitched and convulsed as his body began to morph and change.

"B-Boss… w-what's happeni-" The robot's voice soon cut out, giving way to Technus' gleeful yet slightly insane chortling. His once red and black body became jet black and electric green, his body becoming larger and bulkier while maintaining its ability to curl into an orb. Spikes appeared around Orbot's new body, making his ball form into a large sentient spike trap. In the end of it, he towered over Eggman, who gave Technus' work a glowing smile. Cubot poked into the room to see what was going on only to run screaming at the sight of his friend.

"Yes… this will work out just fine…" Eggman concluded, a sneer covering the whole of his face as he laughed, mostly from seeing Cubot run in terror.

 _A technopathic ghost… why didn't Vlad bring him to me sooner…?_

* * *

 _He opened his eyes, groggy due to sleep still claiming him partially._

 _The temperature hit him first. Why was it so cold all of the sudden? Did Sonic forget to shut the window? Maybe his ice powers were bugging out because he wasn't using them?_

 _And his clothes… he was back in that white shirt he had worn for quite awhile, complete with the torn, hanging-by-a-thread jeans. No shoes though… he had on red sneakers before, didn't he? What happened to the black sweatshirt Sonic had given him? He hadn't worn this outfit since…_

 _No no, that couldn't have been right. He was imagining was no way he was back there. No way he could have been taken back to-_

 _The sounds of constant mechanical humming, and a distinct robot's laughs, made his heart sink._

 _He was back in the cell._

 _He had no idea why he was back in that hell hole. He never wanted to set foot back in there ever again; it would be placed on its own private list of things he REALLY didn't want to remember after his memory came back fully._

 _There was no way around it._ He _finally found him… found him and dragged him back to that awful place._

 _Sonic was supposed to be there to protect him! Where was he at a time like this?! Why wasn't he coming to save him like he did the first day?!_

 _His head shot up when he heard footsteps ring from the end of the hall, snaking towards him along with the squeak of a cart. He hated that cart with a passion; it contained so many of the things he had grown to fear like the plague all those months, from needles to scalpels, to cattle prods, to stun guns, to that horrible drug that always made his head feel blank and fuzzy and turned his thoughts to molasses._

He _stopped right in front of him, holding a lone needle full of the dreaded substance._

" _Time for another shot, kid. Come on up so we can get it over with and I can watch you squirm..."_ He _sneered, showing no remorse for the boy's frightened form cowering in the back of the cage._

" _No…" he softly said, curling into a tight ball in hopes of staving off the inevitable, trying to fight off tears. It wasn't pretty if he didn't listen. He knew this well. But he didn't want to go back into the dark place in his mind, the reset button the injection acted as. He didn't want to go through the sensation of not knowing where he was again, not when his memory was coming along so nicely…_

" _Fine. Metal, drag him up here so he'll stop wasting my time!"_

" _As you wish, Doctor…"_

 _His blood ran cold. The robot was the worst part, always sadistically taking pleasure in his torment. And for a moment, he could have sworn Sonic took the robot's place, replacing the hedgehog's normally warm expression with cold, emotionless eyes and a mad sneer._

 _He was predictably dragged up, the needle already ready to pierce into his flesh._

 _The prick went deep into his arm, and he screamed with all his might, as loud as his voice could be._

"Danny, buddy, wake up!"

Danny's eyes shot open rapidly as he gasped, pupils pinpricks and sweat drenching his body. He trembled violently and his breathing became harsh, terror and dread still overtaking his senses.

Sonic had his hand gently on his back, rubbing it slowly in circles in an attempt to calm the younger boy down but it wasn't having the effect the hedgehog desired. He could tell that Danny was disoriented and probably didn't recognize his surroundings. His eyes were glassy and darting around everywhere and that ring from a day ago was flicking in and out of sight; he was trying to turn into a ghost again to protect himself. Sonic worried for a moment, not wanting a fight to break out, so he persisted.

"Danny, it's okay, you're safe," Sonic said softly and cautiously, trying again to get Danny to relax, "You were just having a bad dream. There's no need to be scared." He kept repeating this to his friend as many times as he needed to, never showing any signs of impatience and keeping his tone low and comforting.

Eventually after some time, Danny managed to snap out of his feverish state and settle down, recognizing that he was only in his new room, not anywhere near the space ship. He winced whenever he looked at Sonic for a bit after, however, as the flashes between him and Metal Sonic persisted. As they stopped, Sonic left and came back with a glass of water, which Danny gratefully accepted and gulped down.

"You feel better now?" Sonic asked, glad when he received a nod a moment later.

"You wanna talk about what you saw? You were whimpering and crying a lot..." Danny vigorously shook his head, getting a sigh out of Sonic. Danny wanted nothing more to do with the dream, only desiring to go back to sleep and hope it didn't happen again. Sonic offered to stay up with him until he fell back to sleep, but Danny quickly declined. The hedgehog gave him a sad smile and wished him goodnight, turning on the lamp to use as a nightlight just in case.

About a half an hour later, Danny fell back to sleep, thankfully not having the dream once again.

 _ **(And with that, I am back to this story at last!**_

 _ **I decided that in this chapter, I would give you all a glimpse into Danny's nightmares, as well as give a sense of Eggman's behavior during those months and a little Sonic and Danny bonding fluff for good measure so it wouldn't get too messed up.**_

 _ **I'm not going to be posting new chapters to this story as often as I used to, but I'm going to try not to neglect it again.**_

 _ **Until next time!)**_


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